Roman Wine Dunking Cookies Food

ITALIAN CONTUCCI (BISCOTTI)

Steps:

• Melt butter in a small bowl and set aside.
• In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients of flour, baking powder, sugar, salt.
• Mix in the lemon juice and rind, and almonds.
• Add the melted butter, beaten eggs (one at a time), and anise to this mixture.
• Blend all ingredients together well.
• Divide the dough into 3 to 4 batches.
• Roll each batch of dough into long strips/logs about 3 inches wide by 12 inches long.
• Place the strips/logs on a greased cookie sheet.
• Bake at 350 degrees until lightly colored, about 20 - 25 minutes.
• Cut diagonally into slices about 1" thick.
• If desired, bake again with the slices placed on their sides, for another 5 - 10 minutes. (My family likes contucci prepared both ways, so we bake half a second time for the drier (dipping) version, and leave the other half baked only once for the more moist version).

ROMAN WINE-DUNKING COOKIES

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease and flour two 10 1/2 x 15 1/2-inch cookie sheets. Combine the flour, sugar, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl. Stir with a large fork. Pour in the oil and wine. Knead for 6 to 7 minutes, pinching and squeezing the dough through your fingers. Turn or scoop the dough our onto floured cutting board and finish kneading by hand until the dough has the consistency of modeling clay, 1 to 2 minutes. Make one at a time. With your fingers, pinch off a pecan-sized piece of dough. Roll it on a clean work surface into a snake 4 to 6 inches long. Lift the snake and join the ends, pinching to form a lifesaver. Gently flatten it with a rolling pin or your palm to a thickness of about 1/4 in. Transfer the ciambellina to the cookie sheet. Continue to roll out snakes and pinch them into lifesavers until the dough is used up. Bake until the ciambelline begin to color, 15 to 20 minutes. Turn them out onto a woden board or rack while still hot and let them cool until rock hard, about 1 hour.