Baci di dama (Lady's Kisses)

By cuznvin

Ingredients

• Chocolate pastry cream:
• 250 g butter
• 250 g powdered sugar
• 250 g flour
• 250 g almond meal
• 1 (organic) lemon or (organic) orange or 1/2 vanilla bean
• 200 g full fat milk
• 30 g heavy cream
• 50 g sugar
• 30 g egg yolks
• 10 g flour
• a pinch of vanilla seeds
• 200 g čokolade za kuhanje(55% cocoa)

Preparation

Step 1

Cookies (the recipe makes about 100 single cookies, 50 when sandwiched):
Chop the butter and let it soften at room temperature for about half an hour, or soften it in the microwave at 5-seconds intervals stirring well each time until soft, but it mustn't start melting.
Add the powdered sugar to the butter and cream them together stirring with a wooden spoon.
Mix and sift together the flour and the almond meal, and stir them into the butter and sugar mixture adding the finely grated lemon or orange zest or the seeds from 1/2 a vanilla bean.
Bring all the ingredients together to form a soft dough.
Let the dough chill in the fridge for 1 hour.
Shape the dough into really small (10 g) balls (roll them well and tightly with your hands to avoid cracking in baking) and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.



Bake the cookies in an oven preheated to 160°C for 20 minutes.
Let them cool on the baking sheet for a couple minutes and then move then to a cooling rack.

Chocolate pastry cream:
Mix the milk and the heavy cream in a saucepan and heat them to 80°C (if you don't have a thermometer, it's when a tiny skin starts forming in surface), don't let it boil.
In another saucepan stir together the egg yolks and the sugar, stir in the flour and the vanilla seeds, and then add the hot milk. Stir well and then put back on the stove.
Cook the cream stirring continuously with a spoon until it starts thickening and reaches 84-85°C (at this point it gets thick enough to see the bottom of the pan while stirring with a spoon and you can see a little bubble here and there, and the cream is shiny). Transfer the cream to a large bowl and let it cool down a little and then mix 160 g of cream with the melted chocolate and stir them well until smooth and homogeneous (you will probably have a little pastry cream left, it can be conserved in the fridge for up to 24 hours and served with fruit or a piece of cake).

Place a small quantity of chocolate cream on the bottom side of each cookie and sandwich it with another empty one. Give the chocolate cream time to dry.



The cookies will keep well for up to 60 days at room temperature, closed in a plastic bag, and protected from light.