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Biscuits Breakfast Dessert

Twice-Baked Almond Cookies or Cantucci, Cantuccini and Tozzetti

How to prepare the real Italian recipe of Cantuccini Biscuits or”Cantucci or Tozzetti”

This recipe is very ancient. Cantucci, or Cantuccini, are twice-baked biscuits. The biscuits are oblong-shaped almond biscuits traditionally, made dry and crunchy through cutting the loaf of dough while still hot and fresh from baking in the oven. Cantuccini were born as bread flavored with aniseed and rehearsed in the oven, hence the classical name of bis-cooked, which means cooked twice. Then there is the “Tozzetti” variation, so called in Lazio region, with hazelnuts instead of almonds. Great after dinner with a dessert wine like “Vinsanto” or a good “Passito” from Pantelleria or a Malvasia from Lipari.

Ingredients

  • 200 grams of Sugar
  • 500 grams of Flour
  • 3 Eggs +1 for brushing
  • 2 knobs of Butter (about 60 grams)
  • 300 grams of Almond or Hazelnuts (of which a handful minced in food processor)
  • 1 tablespoon of Baking Vanilla
  • 1 shot of Liquor

Preparation of Cantuccini

  1. Place the flour on a large bowl, add the sugar, eggs, and baking powder, then knead with your hands adding the butter and some of almonds or hazelnuts. Ideally excluding the nuts left whole to be added separately.
  2. Divide the dough into loaves of the length of the baking tray on which to align the nuts (very near) that are then pushed inside, to work well to give a diameter of about 3 cm and a length of about 30 cm. Put them well spaced on a baking sheet.
  3. Cook them in the oven already hot at 180° for about 20 minutes and till gold colored. Once cooked cut the little loaves transversely into slices of 1 cm with an oblique cut to give the biscuits their characteristic shape. And for a final touch to have more crunchy biscuits just put them back again in the oven for 5 minutes. Enjoy cold.

Posted by Nicoletta and Tiziana.

The Real Italian Food. Buon Appetito!

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