Baci di Dama — Piedmont's hazelnut 'lady's kisses'

i. Origin & history

Baci di dama belong to Tortona, a town in the south-east of Piedmont near the borders with Lombardy and Liguria, and they are now made across the region and much of northern Italy. Their history before the nineteenth century is obscure. One frequently repeated story says that a cook of the House of Savoy created them in the mid-1800s for King Victor Emmanuel II, who wanted a new biscuit; another credits Tortona's pastry shops directly. Neither can be confirmed, but by the late nineteenth century Tortona's confectioners were producing them commercially and selling them well beyond the town.

The early Tortona baci were made with almonds, and almond versions are still made there. Elsewhere in Piedmont, and especially in the hazelnut-growing hills of the Langhe, hazelnuts took over, and today the hazelnut version is the one most people know. Piedmont's hazelnut variety, the Tonda Gentile delle Langhe (also called Nocciola Piemonte), is famous for its sweetness and aroma and is the same nut behind gianduja chocolate, and the region's hazelnut sweets are a point of pride.

In English, baci di dama translates as 'lady's kisses' or 'kisses of a lady'. Baci means kisses, and dama means lady. The idea is that the two small domes, pressed together with chocolate, resemble lips meeting in a kiss. They have nothing to do with Baci Perugina, the chocolate-covered hazelnut sweets from Perugia in Umbria, which share only the word 'kisses'.

Baci di dama are a Piedmontese traditional food product, and they appear in every pastry shop in Turin, Alessandria and Tortona, sold by weight in paper bags. They are an everyday sweet with coffee and a standard on the biscuit plate at Christmas and celebrations.

ii. How the domes keep their shape

The classic recipe follows a rule of equal weights: the same amount of nuts, flour, butter and sugar. That ratio gives a dough that is rich, short and crumbly, with very little gluten development, because the large amounts of fat and ground nuts coat and dilute the flour. The texture of the finished biscuit is sandy and melting, closer to a Greek kourabiedes than to a crisp biscuit.

The challenge is that such a buttery dough wants to spread. The dome shape — flat on the bottom, round on top — is kept by chilling: the dough is chilled before shaping, then the small balls are chilled again on the tray. Cold butter takes longer to melt in the oven, so the flour and nuts set around it before the biscuit has time to flatten.

Size matters more than in most biscuits. Traditional baci are tiny, with each half weighing 6–8 g. Small balls bake quickly and evenly, and they rise into a neat dome rather than slumping. They should stay pale gold; baked darker, the hazelnut flavour turns bitter and the texture becomes hard.

Toasting the nuts is the source of flavour. Hazelnuts toasted until their skins crack and the flesh turns light gold have a much deeper, sweeter, almost cocoa-like flavour than raw nuts. Rub off the skins in a tea towel, cool the nuts completely, and grind them with some of the sugar so that they do not turn into an oily paste.

iii. Ingredients

Makes 24 servings · scroll the side panel to adjust

• 100 g hazelnuts (or blanched almonds)
• 100 g caster sugar
• 100 g plain flour
• 100 g cold unsalted butter, diced
• 1 pinch salt
• ½ tsp vanilla extract (optional)
• 60 g dark chocolate (60–70% cocoa), for filling

The equal weights of nuts, sugar, flour and butter are the traditional ratio and make the recipe easy to scale. Piedmont hazelnuts are the ideal, but any good hazelnuts work if well toasted; for the original Tortona style, use blanched almonds, lightly toasted. Some recipes replace part of the flour with rice flour for an even shorter, sandier texture; all rice flour makes gluten-free baci. Use a good, slightly bitter dark chocolate; milk chocolate makes the biscuits too sweet, and chocolate hazelnut spread does not set firm enough to hold the halves together.

iv. Method

1. Toast the hazelnuts on a tray at 170 °C (340 °F) for 8–10 minutes, until the skins crack and the nuts smell fragrant. Rub them in a tea towel to remove most of the skins and cool completely.
2. Grind the cooled nuts with the sugar in a food processor in short pulses until fine and sandy, stopping before they turn oily.
3. Add the flour, salt, vanilla and cold butter, and pulse until the mixture comes together into a soft dough. Flatten into a disc, wrap and chill for at least 1 hour.
4. Line two trays with baking paper. Pinch off pieces of dough weighing 6–8 g and roll them into smooth balls between your palms. Place on the trays 2 cm apart. Chill the trays for 30 minutes.
5. Heat the oven to 160 °C (320 °F), conventional heat. Bake one tray at a time for 14–16 minutes, until the domes are set and very lightly golden at the base but still pale on top.
6. Cool the biscuits completely on the trays; they are fragile while warm. Pair them by size.
7. Melt the chocolate gently over a pan of hot water or in short bursts in the microwave and let it cool and thicken slightly. Pipe or spoon a small dot onto the flat side of one biscuit, press its partner on top, and set on a rack for about 30 minutes until the chocolate is firm.

v. Tips & common mistakes

• Weigh the balls. Even sizes mean even baking and neat pairs. Use scales for the first few until your eye is trained.
• Chill the shaped balls. This is what keeps the dome shape. Unchilled dough spreads into flat discs.
• Do not over-grind the nuts. Process them only until sandy. Over-processed nuts release oil, and the dough becomes greasy.
• Bake low and pale. Baci di dama should be golden at the base only. Dark biscuits taste bitter and lose their melting texture.
• Let the chocolate thicken before filling. Hot, runny chocolate soaks into the biscuit or squeezes out of the sides. Slightly cooled chocolate sits in a neat line.
• Handle them gently. The dough is very short, so the biscuits are fragile. Store them in a single layer or with paper between layers.

vi. Variations

Tortona's almond baci are the oldest style, made with toasted almonds. Chocolate baci di dama add cocoa to the dough and are filled with white or dark chocolate. Some pastry shops fill them with gianduja, Piedmont's hazelnut chocolate, or with apricot jam; modern variations include pistachio, coffee and matcha doughs.

They have relatives throughout Europe. Austria's Linzer dough uses a similar nut-rich shortbread, and Mexican wedding cookies and Greek kourabiedes are nut shortbreads rolled in icing sugar. In Italy, they sit on the biscuit plate with Siena's soft ricciarelli and Mantua's crumbly sbrisolona.

vii. Serving & storage

Baci di dama are served at room temperature, with espresso or a glass of Moscato d'Asti, or as part of a plate of small biscuits at the end of a meal. They are a favourite gift in Piedmont, packed in tins or paper cones, and they go well alongside zabaione or a bowl of ice cream.

Stored in an airtight tin at room temperature, they keep for two weeks; in very warm weather, keep them in a cool place so the chocolate does not soften. The baked, unfilled biscuits freeze well for up to three months; fill them after thawing. The raw dough can also be frozen, shaped into balls, and baked straight from frozen with a minute or two added.

ix. More from Italian

• Ricciarelli — Sienese almond biscuits
• Sbrisolona — Mantuan crumbly cake
• Zabaione — warm Marsala custard
• Fennel Seed Biscotti — twice-baked biscuits
• Kourabiedes — Greek almond shortbread
• Hazelnut Praline — caramelised hazelnuts