Baci di Dama cookies (Italian for ?ladies? kiss?)

My great uncle is Italian. (Yea, we pretty much have every ethnicity in the world in my family. )

Straight from Roma Italia, he always cooks the most authentic lasagna with mushrooms and salami and pastrami and mmMMMmmm…

He also makes these…..

Italian ‘Baci di Dama’ cookies… which means “ladies’ kiss” in Italian

baci di dama

They’re soft, crumbly, rich, and 100% decadently delish!! Pretty easy to make, too. My uncle doesn’t measure out his ingredients, so I had to guess the measurements (and tweak.. many, many times)

And here’s the recipe I came up with- tried and tested! I’m always tweaking it bit by bit, but this is the basic recipe I use each time!

Baci di Dama Cookies

Cookies:

3/4 cup of almonds (pre-sliced almonds make the grinding process a lot quicker)

3/4 cup of butter

3/4 cup of sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp almond extract (uncle leaves this out, but I prefer a stronger flavor)

about 1 tsp grated orange peel (optional. I never use this; I think it’s unnecessary)

1 cup of plain flour

Filling:

1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate, melted

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1. Grind up the almonds in a food processor until it’s finely ground.

2. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until it forms a dough.

3. Place the dough on a cookie sheet in the shape of 1 inch balls. **If the dough is very sticky to work with. You can refrigerate it for a couple hours until it’s firm if you want, but it’s shouldn’t be necessary.

4. Bake for around 10 minutes at 350 degrees F.

5. Cool the cookies on a rack. Once the cookies are cool, spoon a small bit of melted chocolate onto the flat sides and sandwich it with another cookie.  

Experiment with the filling! I’ve tried the following:

- dark chocolate with raspberry preserve

- dark chocolate with a few drops of peppermint extract

- white chocolate with pink food coloring (for Valentine’s Day)

- Nutella… can’t go wrong with this!

Yay, that is my first recipe post; how exciting

Now I’m off to the gym to get my heart pumping on them ellipticals. Then dance studio –this time I’m keeping it safe and not attempting to do windmills.

Catch ya later!