Baci di Dama with Sucanat
Baci di dama are an Italian cookie that only recently became one of my must-bake Christmas cookies. The recipe below is adapted from Domenica Marchetti’s recipe. I made a few changes: (1) I swapped out the hazelnuts for pecans since I could not easily find hazelnuts; (2) I swapped out the granulated sugar for Sucanat; and (3) I changed up the shape a bit since I am not a fan of sandwiched cookies and just made slightly larger cookies and dipped them in chocolate instead.
As a reminder, Sucanat is an abbreviation for “sucre de canne naturel” or natural cane sugar and is a less processed, more natural sugar in comparison to granulated white sugar/brown sugar. Due to the minimal processing involved in producing Sucanat, it retains more of its nutritional properties as well. The minimal processing does mean that the granules of Sucanat are larger and not uniform though so when adding it to recipes, including this one, you will need to grind it in a coffee or spice grinder first so that it can better incorporate in with the the rest of the ingredients.
I promise you won’t be able to eat just one of these cookies because the combination of nuts, coffee, and chocolate is seriously hard to resist. Enjoy!
Makes about 45 cookies
Ingredients
140 grams toasted pecans
95 grams (1/2 cup) Sucanat, grind in coffee/spice grinder
2 teaspoons very finely ground espresso (optional)
1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
140 grams (1 cup plus 2 tablespoons) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (1 stick; 115 g) unsalted butter, at cool room temperature, cut into cubes
3 ounces bittersweet (65 to 70%) chocolate, coarsely chopped
Directions
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat liner.
Place the pecans and Sucanat into a food processor and process until the pecans are finely ground. Add the espresso and salt and pulse to combine. Then pulse in the flour until combined. Distribute the butter in the bowl and process until the dough starts to come together in a big clump.
You can either just remove the blade from the bowl now and work directly from the bowl or turn the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and pat into a disk. Then pinch off small pieces of dough and roll them into balls (each ball should weight around 7-8 grams). Place them on the baking sheet, about an inch or two apart.
Place the baking sheet in the freezer to chill while the oven preheats to 325 F (this helps to make sure the cookies don’t flatten out too much when baking).
Bake the cookies for about 30 minutes or until they are lightly browned and set. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let cool.
Once the cookies are cool, melt the chocolate in a small bowl (either in the microwave or in a double boiler). Dip the top of each cookie into the chocolate and place on the cooling rack until the chocolate has hardened.
