Cookie debts

New year, new ideas! I'm eventually recovering from the terrible flu I had during the Christmas holidays and now cooking feels like something nice and tempring again. Of course I had prepared something vegetarian, seitan roll for the Christmas table, but I didn't eat even half of it, so the leftovers are still in the freezer :)
I think it is better to make many small promises for the new year so that at least some of them will be realised! One of the promises was to return this lovely Lebkuchen box to the owner, who gave it to me over a year ago, full with some lovely homemade cookies. I had promised to return it full as well, so I baked some of my favourite cookies this weekend. This superrecipe is from a Swedish friend Torun, who gave it to me many years ago, and I have done my fair share to spread around the chocochip evagelion! Here is the original recipe, as written in the tiny piece of paper I have got:

COOOOKIES
* cream 250 g butter
* add and beat in 2,5 dl white sugar and 2,5 dl brown sugar
* beat in 2 eggs and 1,5 tsp vanilla sugar
* sift (it's not 100% necessary, but the cookies DO get better) mix & stir in 6 dl flour, 1,5 tsp salt and 2 tsp baking soda
* stir in 300g chopped dark chocolate and 200 g chopped nuts (if you like)
* make small balls, bake at 150-170 for bit more than 10 minutes
* hide the cookies well

Well, I bake them every time a bit differently. This time I only used brown (Mascobado) sugar so the cookies became browner than usually. I also noticed that there was less chocolate in the cupboard as I had thought (!) so I added 100g of dark chocolate and 200g of walnuts and hazelnuts, finely chopped. Cookies are very tasty even if you add less than 300g chocolate, which is quite a lot! next time I think I'll add a tablespoon or two of cold strong coffee which might give a nice kick to them as well.

And yes, after all also the nutty version was so tasty that I had to hide the cookies :) I'm happy that I can eventually pay back my cookie debts!

Baci di dama

Right now I'm involved in a translation project, which takes a lot of time and effort, but it's also nice: translating cookie recipes from all around the world :) I was working on Italian recipes yesterday: I had chosen amaretti, cantuccini and baci di dama. I was very inspired by the website of Sonia Peronaci called Giallo Zafferano (Yellow Saffron) - great recipes, clear pictures and videos, good layout..well, too bad that it's available only in Italian! Maybe the pictures help to cook and bake even if the text would be incomprehensible? :)

I just tried for the first time the baci di dama cookies and that's indeed a very good recipe, but takes some time..so don't try to make these if you are in a hurry!

I read here that they come originally from a Piemontese town called Tortona, where they have been created 1893 in Pasticceria di Zanotti, and ever since they have used the same recipe and same form for the cookies that indeed look like kissing lips :)

Baci di dama (40-50 cookies)

Ingredients:

200 g hazelnuts or almonds
200 + 20 g plain flour
20 g (1,5 tbsp) cacao powder
200g butter
200 g sugar
for the filling 200 g dark chocolate (I used around 130g plate, which was enough)

Preheat the oven to 180 C and roast the nuts or almonds for 10 minutes, let cool. Mince them in a food processor with 2 tbsp of sugar, then mix in a bowl with 200 g of flour. Divide the flour mix into two bowls and add 20 g or 1,5 tbsp of cacao powder to one bowl, 20 g or 1,5 tbsp flour to another bowl, mix well. Add 100 g of butter to both of the doughs - I added also a drop of water because the dough was dry and crumbling. After having formed two even balls of dough, chill them in fridge for at least 30 minutes. Roll the chilled doughs into long bars and cut them into evenly small pieces. Roll the pieces into small balls and place them on baking sheets. Bake for 15 minutes in 180 C, let cool.
Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a kettle of simmering water. Fill the bacis with a drop of chocolate. Place them on a plate and let cool in a fridge before serving them.

I'll bring them to my Italian group tonight, I hope they will like them, too!