Tuscan Hazelnut Rustici recipe?

[ColleenD]

I just got home from a cycling trip to Tuscany. While I was there, I ate two kinds of "rustici" cookies.

I had never heard of these cookies before. They were delicious. I bought one bag at a grocery store and they were commercially made by Corsini. The ingredients listed are just hazelnuts, sugar, egg whites and salt. The other kind was from a specialty store and also was flavored with chocolate and a hint of cinnamon, I think.

The cookies are small drop type cookies that are basically finely chopped hazelnuts held together by a cross between biscotti and meringue. I am assuming that some of the hazelnuts listed in the ingredients are actually ground hazelnuts. I could not find a recipe on the internet. Does anyone have a recipe or an idea of the rough proportions I should start experimenting with?

Thanks.

[apronstrings]

This sounds to me like an Italian cookie known as BRUTTI ma buoni (ugly but good). There are many, many good recipes for this. I have had great success with the one from The Silver Spoon cookbook, which is now available in English. Martha Stewart's recipe comes out very nice as well. Let me know if this is the cookie you mean. Good luck.

[ColleenD]

Thanks so much, apronstrings! I think that is what I had. There are tons of recipes for brutti ma buoni each with a little twist, but this one looks closest to what I had:

http://www.foodtv.ca/recipes/recipedetails.aspx?dishid=6609

No recipe, but this is what the chocolate ones looked like:

http://www.savorgourmet.com/products.php?c...188e6dbc3a42716

I'll have to try to make a batch this weekend. Thanks again!

[apronstrings]

You're welcome. The pics don't do the cookie justice-- it's much uglier than that. Enjoy!

[Redsugar]

Carole Shields provided a recipe for Brutti ma Buoni alla Milanese (Hazelnut Paste Cookies) in her exemplary volume, The Italian Baker (Harper & Row, 1985). The author remarks in her preface to the recipe that "nothing about their appearance is one bit tempting, but pop one of these chewy, crunchy little hazelnut lumps into your mouth and they're irresistible." (p. 389)

Her ingredients comprise:

8 or 9 egg whites

240 grams granulated sugar

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

200 grams hazelnuts, toasted, skinned,

and chopped to the size of fat rice kernels

She also offers a Tuscan-style version, using almond paste, sliced almonds, and candied citron, orange, and lemon peels.

Lawrence

Edited September 23, 2007 by Redsugar (log)

[ColleenD]

Thanks, Redsugar! I wasn't able to get any baking in over the weekend as hoped, but will try to get to these soon. They were so good and I managed to convince myself that they were sort of "healthy" cookies since they have a lot of protein from the nuts and egg whites!