Baci di Nocciola: The love child of Baci di Dama and Nutella

The holidays have come and gone, and having been equipped with a snail-paced, nay if not glacial, internet connection, I opted to eat cookies rather than write about them.
So yes, for the Christmas these little baci missed the sleigh. But don't throw yourself in a post-holiday bummer quite yet, baci di nocciola are much more than simple holiday treats.

Over the years I have been desperately trying to perfect homemade baci di dama with disastrously great results. The originals are pert bites of nutty cookies held together by a chocolatey cream, while my attempts were dipersed blobbs of cookie held together by strands of chocolate. Tasty but rather unfortunate looking. Similarly my quest for the ultimate nutella flavored cookie has bogged down, fallen flat , and crumbled apart on various occasions.

That is until this Christmas when the efforts of my cookie crusades converged and culminated in these little baci di nocciola and my peace of mind. Tasty like a spoonful of hazelnut cream, these round little bites got the look.


Recipe for Baci di Nocciola:

For the classic baci di dama you take two cookies and stick them together with a chocolate cream (made by combining melted butter with the chocolate) or a chocolate and nut butter cream. For my baci di nocciola I opted to just use one cookie . I dipped half of the batch in melted dark chocolate and the other half of the batch in melted Nussnougat, the German version of gianduia. The gianduia does not solidify as much as the chocolate so i also coated these with some ground crocanti (in this case candied hazelnuts ). At first I preferred the ones covered in chocolate, but as time went by the gianduia soaked into the cookie and made them superbly nutty.

150g ground hazelnuts150g flour2 Tbs of unsweetened cocoa powder150g butter70g of sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder1 tsp of vanilla (I generally use vanilla sugar which I make with powdered sugar and scraped vanilla beans, but other vanilla flavoring will do)
pinch of salt1 eggGarnishes:
dark chocolate (or chocolate of choice for melting)ground candied nutsCombine dry ingredient in a bowl.In a separate bowl cream together butter and sugar, beat in vanilla and the egg.Mix in the dry ingredients.Shape dough into a ball, cover in plastic wrap, and place in the fridge to cool for about 15 minutes.In the meantime preheat oven to 180 Celsius (360 Fahrenheit) and line baking sheets with baking paper.Take the dough from the fridge and shape little 1/2 tsp sized balls. These have to be placed moderately far apart, as they don't spread to much.Now place full cookie sheet into the freezer (or if you are making these in a cold place, outside). This is a really important step (and probably the reason why all my other attempts failed miserably). The dough needs to be really cold when it goes into the oven, otherwise it will spread into one sheet of cookie.Bake for 15 minutes until lightly browned.Cool and garnish with melted chocolate. Let cool again before serving or gifting.
Frohes Fest!