What I Dig About Christmas: Cookies

I'm not always into the holiday spirit, and this year, honestly, was no different. But, I LOVE making these amazing Italian cookies each year. And this year was no different.



I make the date-filled cookies (inspired by the classic fig-filled Italian variety) with my Rock-Out Cut-Out dough. That recipe is in the Cookie Chaos! booklet. I use that dough for the sesame cookies as well. Sometimes, if I think to seek out black sesame seeds, I do black and white, since it's more dramatic and special that way.

As for the cute sandwich cookies in the middle, those are hazelnut baci cookies, another Italian recipe which I tried for the first time this year. They do take time and I have to say I was surprised at the relatively small number of cookies I ended up with considering the work that went into them. However, these are scrumptious and very well worth it for special occasions. They're somewhat like a hazelnut version of Pepperidge Farm Milanos. Yum.

I can't seem to locate the recipe I found online for these (I printed out several and settled on one that had the combination of ingredients I thought would turn out the way I wanted). This one, from Michael Chiarello is very close. I used granulated sugar instead of the confectioner's and it turned out just fine. I rolled small marble sized balls of dough and placed them on cookie sheets to bake, rather than spooning the dough out onto the sheets.