{"id":8349,"date":"2026-10-19T23:30:59","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T14:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parade.kyoto\/?post_type=sweetlore&p=8349"},"modified":"2026-10-31T18:49:54","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T09:49:54","slug":"baci-di-dama","status":"publish","type":"sweetlore","link":"https:\/\/parade.kyoto\/en\/sweetlore\/baci-di-dama\/","title":{"rendered":"Baci di Dama"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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 \u201clady\u2019s kisses.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\n\"Homemade\n
Homemade hazelnut baci di dama (June 8, 2014; location unknown). Two hemispherical biscuits are joined with chocolate. Photo: Caravita81 \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a> \/ Public domain<\/a>. Full-size image obtained. No alterations to the content and no cropping by us.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Grinding the nuts and mixing them into the dough<\/h2>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The Tortona formulation described in Piedmont\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\n\"Baci\n
Baci di dama with a white chocolate cream sandwiched between cocoa biscuits (February 25, 2019; location unknown). A variation pairing a dark dough with a pale filling. Photo: Rollopack \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a> \/ CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>. Full-size image obtained. No alterations to the content and no cropping by us.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

A thin layer of chocolate joining two biscuits<\/h2>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Amaretti<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Histories handed down in Tortona and Novi Ligure<\/h2>\n

According to the Piedmont Region\u2019s documentation on traditional food products, the Zanotti brothers ran a confectionery business in Tortona from 1885 and filed the trademark \u201cBaci di Dama Zanotti\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

A 1931 food guide by the Italian Touring Association, cited in the same region\u2019s 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: \u201cNovi Ligure \u2013 Tortona.\u201d Guidebooks and shop labels preserve the names of the two towns involved in making and distributing the sweet.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cBaci Dorati,\u201d which have chocolate added to the dough. Not only movement between the towns but also competition among makers gave rise to different formulations.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s charms do. It is a court tale that links the king\u2019s wish to the name \u201clady\u2019s kisses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\"Baci\n
Sweets published as baci di dama from Cossetta in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States (May 14, 2021). The type of nut in each piece cannot be identified from the photo. Photo: Gobonobo \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a> \/ CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>. Reduced-size version from Commons obtained. No alterations to the content and no cropping by us.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Shops that wrap each piece, and families who work together<\/h2>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

How they differ from the Alassio sweet<\/h2>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Balzola in Alassio has presented this local sweet as its own creation and has also protected it with a trademark.<\/p>\n

Glossary<\/h2>\n

Lazzari Ada<\/strong>: A home cook living in Marentino, Piedmont. She showed how to make baci di dama in a 2016 report.<\/p>

\u2022 Davide Malizia<\/strong>: An Italian pastry chef who teaches techniques for nut biscuits and other items in specialist books.\n\u2022 Tempering: Adjusting the temperature of chocolate to bring it into the desired crystalline state.\n\u2022 Crystallization: The regular solidification of the fat in melted chocolate.\n\u2022 Gianduja: A combination of hazelnut paste and chocolate.\n\u2022 Amaretti: Small Italian sweets based on sugar, egg white, and almonds or apricot kernels.\n\u2022 Baci di Alassio: Small two-piece sweets made with nuts and cocoa, handed down in Alassio, Liguria.\n\u2022 Novi Ligure: A city near Tortona. A 1931 guidebook names it as the place where baci di dama are a specialty.\n\u2022 Augusto Manelli: A confectioner who appears in the Novi account of the sweet\u2019s creation. According to a local story, he made them before Zanotti.\n\u2022 Zanotti brothers \/ Vercesi: Two makers in Tortona. The former is linked to the Baci di Dama trademark, and the latter to Baci Dorati, which have chocolate added to the dough.\n\u2022 Baci Dorati: A competing small sweet introduced by the Vercesi side, with chocolate added to the dough.\n\u2022 Vittorio Emanuele II: King of Sardinia in the 19th century and later King of Italy. He appears in the court legend of baci di dama.<\/p>

References<\/h2>\n

  1. \u2022 Distretto del Novese, \u201cIl Bacio di dama novese\u201d<\/a> \u2014 A regional account of Manelli\u2019s confectionery work and his move to Tortona. Early contemporaneous recipes have not been seen.<\/p><\/li>

  2. Italiazuki, \u201cvol.186 Mamma\u2019s Recipe: Baci di Dama\u201d (published January 28, 2022; interview conducted March 2016)<\/a>: lines 34\u201349, 53 and 80\u2013101. An example of a report on a family making them together. Its general story of a royal origin is not adopted; the legend and regional documentation already in this article are retained.<\/li>

  3. \u2022 PiemonteIS, \u201cBaci di Dama di Tortona\u201d<\/a> \u2014 The almond type, the two-nut type, the region and shaping, and individual wrapping.\n\u2022 Davide Malizia, Biscotti (excerpt), page 96 of the book<\/a> \u2014 The page after the 15th PDF page (p15 with zero-based indexing). The equal-proportion hazelnut formulation, 12-hour chilling, 6-gram balls, and joining during crystallization. Used as the basis for the technique; the traditions about dates in the text have not been adopted.\n\u2022 La Cucina Italiana, \u201cBaci di dama\u201d<\/a> \u2014 A type using almonds, starch and eggs, flattening during baking, and gianduja.\n\u2022 Pasticceria Zanotti<\/a> \u2014 The shop\u2019s claim that it created the sweet in 1890, and its current almond product. This does not establish the invention on the basis of independent historical sources.\n\u2022 Balzola, \u201cIl brevetto\u201d<\/a> \u2014 An account by the party concerned of the Alassio sweet\u2019s creation and trademark. The shop\u2019s history is not extended into a history of the invention of every Alassio product, and the trademark is not confused with a patent for inventing the technique.<\/p><\/li>

  4. \u2022 Babbi, \u201cBaci di Alassio,\u201d recipe by Dolcemente Inventando<\/a> \u2014 The process: a dough of hazelnuts, sugar, egg white, honey and cocoa, piped with a star tip, with the surfaces dried before baking and the halves joined in pairs.\n\u2022 Piedmont Region documentation on traditional food products, \u201cBaci di Dama di Tortona\u201d<\/a> \u2014 The 1890 trademark on PDF p.519, the production areas given in 1931 and in the 1970s, and Vercesi\u2019s derivative product.\n\u2022 Pasticceria Zanotti, \u201cStoria dei Baci di Dama\u201d<\/a> \u2014 The shop\u2019s archive includes an 1898 advertisement and a 1902 label that list both town names. The party\u2019s own claim about the origin is not treated as independent proof.\n\u2022 Pasticceria Tagliafico, \u201cBaci di Dama\u201d<\/a> \u2014 The 1852 court legend of Vittorio Emanuele II, as told by the current maker. In an additional check on October 23, 2026, the relevant paragraph of the legend, which the same page explicitly labels \u201cSecondo la leggenda,\u201d was confirmed and saved. It is not used as a record of an invention in 1852 or as a contemporaneous court record.<\/p><\/li>

  5. Editorial notes (Japanese re-edit)<\/h3><\/li>

  6. The account that Augusto Manelli came first is retained as a local tradition. No original early formulation records exist, and whether he came before or after Zanotti has not been established.<\/p><\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Baci di dama are a Piedmontese baked sweet in which two small nut biscuits are joined with chocolate. Their name, \u201clady\u2019s kisses,\u201d comes from their resemblance to two round lips meeting in a kiss. A thin brown line peeks out between the golden hemispheres.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":7280,"menu_order":120,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_parade_sweetlore_meta":{"en":"Baci di dama","subtitle":"Two nut hemispheres joined by chocolate in a small kiss","topics":"Joining two flat bases\uff0fChocolate: the key to both flavor and bonding\uff0fFrom Tortona to southern Piedmont","country":"Piedmont, Italy","show_toc":true,"ingredients":["chocolate","nuts","butter"],"texture":["crumbly"],"occasion":[],"method":["baked"],"season":["year-round"]},"footnotes":""},"sweetlore_category":[151],"class_list":["post-8349","sweetlore","type-sweetlore","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":{"sweetlore_related_products":null,"sweetlore_related_faqs":null,"sweetlore_related_voices":null,"sweetlore_related_mode":"auto","sweetlore_related_articles":null},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t