I didn’t post a recipe in a while as I have been touring around my own Region in the past few weeks, and being temperature so hot here in Italy in the past days I just wanted to stay away from fires and oven. However, I had the chance to buy some special hazelnuts yesterday and I decided to bake one of the most popular biscuits of my area: Baci di Dama.

The local hazelnuts are called “Round and Gentle Hazelnut from Piedmont” and are protected with a geographical appellation (IGP) since long, due to their very peculiar organoleptic characteristics that, based on several experts, make them the best in the world. This specific hazelnut is used to make several desserts in my region but most of all a very special biscuit that everyone likes, called “Baci di Dama” (the Lady’s Kiss).

Baci di Dama are nice, sweet and addictive. You can find them almost everywhere in Regione Piemonte (Piedmont) which is the place where these biscuits are from. Nowadays you can also find Baci di Dama made with other ingredients such as almonds or pistachos but the one and only Bacio di Dama is made with hazelnuts only.

To ease your understanding of the process I also made a video.

Ingredients:

• 150 grams of Hazelnut (best with Round and Gentle hazelnut but you can use any other, also from other areas of the world).
• 125 grams of white sugar
• 100 grams of butter
• 1 or 2 tablespoons of white wheat flour
• 1 bitter chocolate bar (approx 70 grams)

Instructions:

Grind the hazelnuts and 100 grams of sugar together in a food processor, until it all gest into a powder then put it into a bowl. Add the remaining 25 grams of sugar and all the butter which you have previously diced and smoothen at room temperature.

Start kneading with your hands and add the flour. Keep kneading until it all goes into a compact dought (add an extra tablespoon of flour if needed).

Wrap the dough with a film and let it rest in the fridge for 30 or 40 minutes.

Prepare a baking tray with parchment paper. Take small pieces of dough and turn them into very small balls with a diameter of approximately 2 cm each. Cut each ball in 2 parts and place them by the flat side in the baking tray. Bake for 20 minutes at 140° C. Although there is no baking power or yeasts in the dought, they will grow a bit during the baking, thus make sure you leave some room between the biscuits.

Once baked, take the chocolate bar and melt it down in bain-marie with 20 grams of butter. Once melted, take one half-ball and put 1 teaspoon of chocolate on the flat side, take the second half-ball and place it above the chocolate. Press gently: the chocolate will make the 2 sides stick together

Put Baci di Dama in the fridge for 30 minutes before serving.

Nutrition Facts
Serving size: 1 unit
Servings: 25
Amount per serving
Calories	103
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 8.1g	10%
Saturated Fat 3.1g	15%
Cholesterol 11mg	4%
Sodium 30mg	1%
Total Carbohydrate 7.9g	3%
Dietary Fiber 0.6g	2%
Total Sugars 6.6g
Protein 1.1g
Vitamin D 3mcg	14%
Calcium 10mg	1%
Iron 0mg	2%
Potassium 43mg	1%