Baci di dama (Hazelnut and chocolate biscuits)

Named for their shape which is said to resemble the lips of a lady intent on kissing, baci di dama or 'ladies' kisses' have become a fixture in Piedmontese pasticcerie since their invention in the town of Tortona over a century and a half ago.

The premise for making these elegant, bite-sized morsels would appear to be simple. Simply unite two tiny, dome-shaped biscuits together with melted chocolate. And, with equal amounts of ground hazelnuts, flour, butter and sugar to be used, the ingredients are certainly easy enough to remember. There's no egg to stabilise the biscuits while they are baking though, so a bit of technique is essential to achieving the right shape and consistency.

The three main tricks to getting these biscuits right: cold butter; several hours ofresting time in the refrigerator (or freezer, if pressed for time); and a relatively low temperature oven. By taking these precautions, your biscuits will refrain from sinking too much and have that delicate, melt in your mouth consistency.

The patented recipe in Tortona uses ground almonds but elsewhere in Piedmont, bakers and home cooks often use locally grown hazelnuts. You could therefore replace the ground hazelnuts indicated in the ingredient list below with ground almonds or use a mixture of both. It's also become common to add cocoa to the biscuit mixture. For this particularly rich, chocolatety variant, simply replace 20 g of the flour indicated below with unsweetened cocoa. Also, I prefer to make my dough by hand but there is no reason why you can't use a food processor for this step either.

(This recipe makes about 20 – 25 baci di dama)