Ladies' Kisses (Baci Di Dama)

Ever since I bought this book, "The Cookie and Biscuit Bible" from Borders several months ago, one particular recipe, the Ladies' Kisses, from this book has always been on the back of my mind. However, I have never gotten around to make them until last Friday morning.



In order to write up this post, I did a little search on the internet, to find out more about these cookies. It is only at this moment that I learn that the Italian name for these cookies is Baci di Dama, which literally means Kisses from a Lady! Now then I understand that a fellow flickr member has actually given me the name in her comment, but I wasn't able to read the language she wrote ;')

These bite-sized Italian cookies were originally created in the Piedmont region of Italy, an area famous for its prized hazelnuts. 'According to a legend, they were created by a chef who worked for the Savoia Royal family and he wished to impress the King Vittorio Emanuele. The name is not clear but most probably it seems to represent a kiss between two lovers and the shape itself resembles lady lips.'

I was rather amused after reading this. It was exactly what my elder boy had deduced!! After he took a bite of this mini-sandwich cookie, he studied it, and told me he knew why they are called Ladies' Kisses. He pointed out that his half eaten cookie looked just like a person's pair of lips...I could still remember his sheepish grin at that moment :) I couldn't help but agreed with him.


I made these cookies with my younger boy as he didn't need to go to school that morning. The night before, he reminded me that if I were to bake anything, I'll have to inform him so that he could be involved right from the beginning. When he spotted me weighing the butter, he came along and 'scolded' me for not letting him know that I was about to start my baking session! I quickly assured him that I had not worked on anything yet as we needed time for the butter to soften. I guessed he was not very convinced, as he continued to hang around in the kitchen 'watching' after me ;)



We went on to measure out the ingredients together, with his help, we got flour, sugar all over the place. He helped me creamed the butter and sugar until it turned pale and fluffy. Then we added in the egg, followed by almond and flour until it reached this stage:


The cookie dough was very wet, no wonder it had to be refrigerated for at least 2 hours before you could work on it.


Here comes the fun part...rolling out the dough into small balls. Initially I used a measuring teaspoon to scoop out the dough thinking that it would help to ensure the cookies were of the same size. It didn't work as the dough was always stuck to the measuring spoon. In the end, we just made them by rough estimation. This part of our baking session brought back fond memories of how I used to roll those traditional 'Tang Yuan' during Yuanxiao when I was very young. Maybe I should try make some Tang Yuan for this coming Yuan Xiao, instead of relying on frozen ones?!


Cookie doughs waiting to go into the oven...notice the differences in sizes and shapes? In the midst of baking and cooling off, I told my boy that if the cookies were tasty, we could gave some to his Chinese Calligraphy teacher the next day, since it would be the last lesson for this year. Based on the look and fragrance from the cookies, he suggested that we should just wait till they become adults before giving cookies to their teacher...as by then, it would then really be the last lesson! He told me, they will only master the art after they have become adults. Trust a greedy kid to come up with these sort of excuses!


That was him, stealing cookies one after another from the rack!


I melted some chocolates and sandwiched the cookies together. It was tricky trying to find matching pairs of cookies. The cookies didn't look exactly like those in the cookbook...a more 'authentic' look should be something similar to these or these baked by other flickr members. Since this is the very first time I have tasted such cookies, I wasn't sure whether I have baked them the way they should be. The cookies were not the very crunchy type (unlike those Horlicks Doggies cookies), but I like the taste of ground almonds in them. The males in my family loved them dearly! Was it because of the name?!! They kept coming back for more. Luckily I reserved one small box for the teacher, as they were all gone by breakfast the next day!



The next time I were to make these again, I will use ground hazelnuts instead of almonds, and sandwich them with nutella instead :)

In case you are interested to try this out, here's the recipe:

Method:
(makes 20)

150g (10 tablespoons) butter, softened
115g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
1 egg yolk
2.5ml (1/2 teaspoon) almond essence/extract (I replaced with vanilla)
115g (1 cup) ground almonds (almond powder)
175g (1 1/2 cups) plain flour

filling: 50g plain (semisweet) chocolate, melted

Ingredients:

1. Cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
2. Beat in egg yolk, almond essence, followed by ground almonds and flour until evenly mixed.
3. Chill for about 2 hours until firm.
4. Prehear oven to 160 degC (325 degF). Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
5. Break off small pieces of dough and roll into balls with your hands, making 40 altogether.
6. Place the balls on the baking sheets, spacing them out as they will spread in the oven.
7. Bake for 20 mins or until golden. Let cool in the baking sheet for a few mins. Transfer to cooling rack to cool.
8. Melt chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Use it to sandwich the cookies in pairs, leave to set before serving.