Baci di Dama

Baci di dama are a Piedmontese sweet in which the flat bases of two round biscuits are joined with a thin layer of chocolate. The name, which likens the two facing biscuits to lips, means “lady’s kisses.” They are known as a specialty of Tortona, but they are also associated with neighboring Novi Ligure. The nuts used (almonds or hazelnuts) and the filling (chocolate that sets firm or a soft cream) vary by region and by maker.

Grinding the nuts and mixing them into the dough

The main ingredients are finely ground nuts, butter, sugar and wheat flour. Rather than being mixed in as large pieces, the nuts are ground to a powder and combined into the dough. When the dough is shaped into small balls and baked, the bottoms become flat while the tops stay rounded. The biscuits are cooled completely before being joined in pairs.

The Tortona formulation described in Piedmont’s guide to traditional food products contains almonds. The same guide also includes a recipe (the proportions of ingredients and the method) that uses both almonds and hazelnuts, toasted, so even under a single regional name there is a range of formulations. In the recipe of pastry chef Davide Malizia, 250 grams each of hazelnut flour, sugar, wheat flour and butter are combined with 30 grams of egg white and other ingredients to bring the dough together. Using equal amounts of nuts, sugar, flour and butter is a feature of this recipe.

Malizia chills the dough for at least 12 hours before dividing it into 6-gram balls and baking them. Chilling and resting a dough rich in fat and dividing it into pieces of the same size helps the biscuits brown evenly and ensures that the two halves match in size when they are joined. Another recipe uses almonds, wheat flour and starch, and adds a small amount of egg. The differences lie not only in the type of nut but also in how flours, starches and eggs are used.

A thin layer of chocolate joining two biscuits

A small amount of chocolate is placed on the base of a cooled biscuit, and a second biscuit is put on top of it. In Malizia’s method, the two are assembled by pressing them together lightly just as the tempered chocolate begins to crystallize. The method makes use of the moment when the chocolate changes from flowing to setting, so that a thin layer of chocolate joins the two hemispherical biscuits.

In contrast to chocolate that sets into something like a hard, thin sheet, some recipes sandwich a gianduja cream. In these, a soft layer of hazelnut and chocolate lies against the nut dough. A set thin layer that snaps and a soft cream filling break differently when bitten.

Amaretti also use nuts, but their dough combines sugar and egg white with almonds or with the kernels found inside apricot pits. Baci di dama, by contrast, are two hemispherical biscuits made with wheat flour and butter and joined with chocolate, and the two sweets differ both in the composition of the dough and in how they break when eaten.

Histories handed down in Tortona and Novi Ligure

According to the Piedmont Region’s documentation on traditional food products, the Zanotti brothers ran a confectionery business in Tortona from 1885 and filed the trademark “Baci di Dama Zanotti” in 1890. It is uncertain when the sweet was first made, but by the late 19th century the name was being used as a product name.

A 1931 food guide by the Italian Touring Association, cited in the same region’s documentation, describes the sweet as a specialty of Novi Ligure, while another guide from the early 1970s says it comes from Tortona. Labels preserved at the Zanotti shop also list two place names side by side: “Novi Ligure – Tortona.” Guidebooks and shop labels preserve the names of the two towns involved in making and distributing the sweet.

In Novi there is also a local story that the confectioner Augusto Manelli made the same sweet first and later moved to a shop in Tortona. Who actually made it first is uncertain. Meanwhile, the regional documentation records that, in the competition between Zanotti and Vercesi, the latter created “Baci Dorati,” which have chocolate added to the dough. Not only movement between the towns but also competition among makers gave rise to different formulations.

The Tagliafico pastry shop, which tells a different legend, relates that in 1852 Vittorio Emanuele II asked his court confectioner for a new sweet that would attract people the way a lady’s charms do. It is a court tale that links the king’s wish to the name “lady’s kisses.”

Shops that wrap each piece, and families who work together

Tortona has a tradition of wrapping each sweet by hand in aluminum foil and packing them into boxes. The dough is shaped into uniform small balls and baked, the biscuits are joined in pairs, and each finished sweet is wrapped individually. Detailed work continues from shaping through to packaging.

At home, the shaping and joining are sometimes shared among several people. In a 2016 report on a visit to the home of Lazzari Ada in Marentino, her sisters, daughters and friends were making them together ahead of Easter. They rolled the dough into balls, spread chocolate on the baked biscuits and joined them, discussing the size of the sweets and the amount of chocolate as they worked.

How they differ from the Alassio sweet

Baci di Alassio from Liguria are also made of two halves joined together, but they differ starting with the dough. In an example formulation presented by Babbi, hazelnuts, sugar, honey and cocoa are combined with whipped egg whites, and neither wheat flour nor butter is used. The mixture is piped into small flower shapes with a star tip, the surfaces are dried before baking, and two cooled halves are joined with hazelnut cream. The shaping method also differs from that of baci di dama, whose dough is rolled into balls.

Balzola in Alassio has presented this local sweet as its own creation and has also protected it with a trademark.

Glossary