Baci di Dama

Equal parts. This is the secret of baci di dama. Equal weights of hazelnuts, flour, butter, and sugar. The Piedmontese pasticcieri who created these cookies understood that balance creates harmony. There is nothing to adjust, nothing to improve. The proportions are perfect.

The hazelnuts must be properly toasted and skinned. Raw hazelnuts taste green and grassy. Burnt hazelnuts taste acrid and sad. The window between these two failures is perhaps two minutes. Pay attention. The skins contain bitter tannins that will ruin your cookies if you leave them on. Rub them off while the nuts are hot, when the skins release most easily.

These cookies shatter when you bite them. This is correct. If they are chewy, something has gone wrong. If they are hard, you have overbaked them. The texture should be sandy and tender, dissolving on your tongue and leaving behind the pure taste of toasted hazelnuts married to dark chocolate. What you keep out is as significant as what you put in. There is no vanilla here, no almond extract, nothing to distract from the hazelnut. The chocolate serves only to join the two halves and provide contrast. It is a whisper, not a shout.