Roccoco Cookies, Roccoco Napoletani, Roccoco Biscotti, Neopolitan Christmas cookies, whatever you want to call these they are delicious! Roccoco Napoletani cookies are Italian Christmas cookies that warm you with their pisto spice blend! I’m sure this will be a favorite Christmas cookie recipe! These spicy neapolitan cookies are a combination of about four recipes and my family really enjoyed the final combination.
Weighing ingredients out is very important when making the pisto blend. Of course, Urban Herbs at Cleveland’s West side Market had everything I needed for the ingredients to the pisto blend. Some have baked these as big as bagels and as small as 2 inches across. You can make them to whatever size works for you!
Here’s how to make the roccoco napoletani cookies!
Pisto spice blend for the roccoco napoletani cookies
The recipe for the pisto spice blend makes between 1/3 and 1/2 cups of spice blend. You only need 1 1/2 tablespoons for one recipe. I use a coffee grinder to grind my spices. All you have to do is add all the spices and grind them to a powder. Once combined, the spices make a really nice warm blend which make the roccoco napoletani cookies ! The fine powder makes it easy to sift with the flour. The pisto spice blend can be used with a basic shortbread recipe also.
Mixing the ingredients
Sift the flour and the spices first. The orange can be tricky. Try to use a fresh orange. An old orange may not give you the great tasting zest you may want. You can use candied orange peel if you like but the nutritional values reflected in this recipe will not reflect the use of more sugar.Then add the rest of the ingredients but hold off on the water.
The dough should have a consistency of play-dough. Adding the water a little at a time will help you achieve that consistency. Usually I have used the whole cup of water. There have been times where I have used only about 3/4 of a cup.
Forming the rings
The roccoco napoletani cookies can be as big or as little as you choose. I rolled them out to four inch pieces and formed the rings. It just seemed like the best shape at the time. The baking time is based on this size. Larger or smaller cookies will require longer or shorter baking times.
Try the pecan shortbread cookies for another great Christmas cookie idea!
Please visit my cookies page for more ideas!
Ingredients
Dough:
- 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 1/2 tablespoons of pisto blend recipe
- 3/4 cup almond flour
- Zest of one orange
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1/2 cup slivered almonds
- Roughly one cup of warm water.
- 1 egg and 1 tablespoon of water mixed for egg wash.
Pisto Blend: (see notes)
- 15 g of cinnamon
- 5 g of ground white pepper
- 5 g ground nutmeg
- 5 g ground coriander
- 5 g ground anise seed
Instructions
- Grind all pisto ingredients together
- Sift all purpose flour, sea salt, baking powder, pisto blend into the bowl of a stand mixer.
- Add almond flour, orange zest, honey and slivered almonds and mix until combined.
- Add warm water a little at a time until dough resembles playdough.
- Turn dough out to a lightly floured surface. I rolled the dough out to four inch pieces and made the rings you see in the picture. I just felt that was a nice size. You can make them smaller or bigger but cooking times will vary.
- Place the rings on a parchment lined cooking tray and coat with egg wash.
- Bake at 350 for 13-14 minutes. The cookies should start to get golden brown on edges.
