If I had to name one food that I couldn't live without, chocolate would be right up there. Salted butter is on that short list, too. Seeded bagels, California dried apricots, black and white cookies, osetra caviar (if money, and sustainability, were no object), lobster rolls, French fries, and really good fried chicken would also be on that list. Not as fancy as some of those things, but just as good, another thing that I can never seem to get enough of is crunchy cornmeal.
And the good thing is that I live next to Italy, so whenever I pop over and visit my neighbors, I always bring back not only good coffee by the kilo, but as much polenta as I can jam into my suitcase as well.
A few years ago I was shamed into only using stone-ground cornmeal, but the locals seem to have taken to instant polenta, which I was told wasn't bad by a well-respected chef. That's what is widely available here, but I just couldn't bring myself to agree when I tried it for myself.
Arabic food stores sell cornmeal in various grades, but plain or coarse polenta is what I use for these cookies, not fine. The reason I haven't tried them with fine polenta because I just never buy it. So there.
These crunchy, rustic cookies are adapted from the recipe for Zaletti in Carol Field's excellent book, The Italian Baker, which was one of the cookbooks that I shipped from San Francisco that is in that wayward case of my all-time favorite cookbooks that I shipped here back in 2004, which I am almost giving up hope for recovering. Almost.
Thankfully the recipe was in my personal book of treasured recipes, which I hand wrote in restaurant-sized quantities. So I used my impeccable math skills and reworked it back into manageable quantities, which came out as good as I remembered them.
Excuse me for saying this, and no disrespect is meant, but many Italian pastries and cookies don't look so great. In fact, my favorite Italian cookie is called Brutti Ma Buoni, which literally means "Ugly but good."
And Italians seem to have a love-hate relationship with sugar in desserts: some are intensely sweet, especially those with whipped cream, while others are almost void of the sweet stuff. These fall into that second category. Look, I don't have anything against sugar (which is a good thing, because if I did, I wouldn't have a job), but it's nice when things are more about the flavor of the ingredients rather than being sugary sweet.
One touch that's probably not that authentic was I tried adding a lemon glaze to the cookies. I didn't mind the taste, but anticipating some odd comments (not that that's stopped anyone before...), I decided they looked best without it. However if you want to give it a go, stir together 1/2 cup (70g) powdered sugar with 5 teaspoons of lemon juice until smooth, then drizzle it over the cookies once cooled.
Cornmeal Cookies
About 50 cookies
Adapted from The Italian Baker by Carol Field
You can use any dried fruit you like, or follow the suggestions here. It's a good idea to chop the fruit into small pieces, which makes neatly slicing the cookie dough easier.
3/4 cup (90g) dried currants, or finely chopped sour cherries or raisins
2 tablespoons (20g) flour
5 1/2 ounces (155g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons (120g) sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups (210g) flour
1 cup (140g) polenta, regular or coarse
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1. Toss the dried fruit and the 2 tablespoons (20g) of flour together in a small bowl and set aside.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, or by hand, beat together the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy, about one minute. Add the eggs, one at a time, then the vanilla, beating until incorporated.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the 1 1/2 cups (210g) flour, polenta, baking powder, and salt.
4. Mix the dry ingredients into the beaten butter mixture until incorporated, than stir in the dried fruit.
5. Form the dough into a rectangle 4- by 7-inches (10 by 18 cm), wrap in plastic, and chill the dough for about an hour, or until it's firm enough to handle.
6. Divide the dough in two, lengthwise, and roll each piece of dough on a lightly floured surface into a smooth cylinder 7-inches (18cm) long. Wrap the cylinders and freeze until ready to bake.
(If you prefer to bake the cookies right away, pinch of pieces of dough about the size of a small unshelled walnut, and roll into balls. Place them evenly spaced on the prepared baking sheet and press them down gently with your hands to flatten them partially.)
7. To bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 325ºF. (170 ºC)
8. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
9. Slice the cookies into 1/4-inch (.75cm) slices and place them evenly spaced on the prepared baking sheets. (The dough is easier to slice when frozen, but if it's too firm or crumbles when you cut it, let it sit out on the counter until it reaches a good consistency.)
10. Bake the cookies for about 12 minutes, rotating the baking sheets midway during baking, until the cookies are very light brown on top. Remove the oven and let cool completely.
Serve the cookies by themselves, alongside a fruit compote, or with a scoop of your favorite ice cream or sorbet.
Storage: The cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to four days. The dough can be refrigerated for up to one week, or frozen for one or two months.
Related Links and Recipes
Ingredients for American Baking in Paris
Baked Polenta (Giovanna's Trifles)
Italian Christmas Cookies (Divina Cucina)
Breakfast Polenta (101 Cookbooks)
Grades of Polenta (Chieftain Wild Rice)
I think the lemon glaze sounds delicious on the cookies.
I love that book of Carol Field's - also her "Celebrating Italy." If you need any other recipes from that book, let me know and I'll email them to you. You're so right about Italians having love-hate affair with sugar. There's the overpoweringly sweet baba' au rhum and then there's the traditional (and not very sweet) biscotti that are dunked into vin santo. I love them all.
Ha. I love how to Americans Paris is 'next door' to Italy...!
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you for finding me a good recipe for "Zaletti". I love those freaking things to pieces. Whenever I'm in italy I eat plenty of them, but it just isn't enough. Now I can go and get my fix in my regular kitchen. Merci e grazie.
Once again, your writing just draws me in. I agree with your point about enjoying things for the flavor rather than the sugary sweetness.
Paris is right next door to Italy for Americans in the same way all Americans are from the U.S. and have a homogenious ethnicity to Europeans. :-p
Do you think there's a gluten free alternative to that 1.5 c of flour? Thinking of making these for a gluten intolerant friend. Maybe some of the almond flour left over from the great Macaron Incident of 2009?
Hazel and Liz: Yes, France and Italy share a border. Which makes us neighbors. In the United States (and perhaps in other English-speaking places), we say "next door" to imply neighbors as well.
(Don't know gluten-free alternatives to the flour, but you might want to try corn flour and some corn starch. But am not sure since that's not my specialty.)
ciaochowlinda: All her books are great, but I have a fondness for The Italian Baker, which really is a great collection of Italian pastries and cookies. I think it is out of print, but am sure folks can dig up copies who are interested. I would love to find mine...
Delicious...we're loving the idea of cornmeal cookies (being polenta junkies and all)...and with the dried cherries? Perfect. Must try asap!
Fantastic! I've been looking for a recipe to use up some cornmeal before I move, and adore zaletti! May even add some candied ginger in lieu of dried fruit. Grazie mille, David!
I've broken the spine on 2 copies of The Italian Baker. Great book. Somehow I haven't tried this recipe. I love the Baci di Dama cookies, and the Vanilla-Scented Tea Biscuits. And the Focaccia recipes. Oh, and the Burano butter cookies, which my family calls "Lemon Snakes". I like to melt some chocolate and paint tiny eyes on them with a toothpick.
I’m a little obsessed with lightly sweetened Italian cookies. When I was in Italy the hotels served a variety of delicious cookies as part of breakfast. They were no Stella Dora Breakfast Treats. They were slightly sweet and sort of hearty, the perfect partner to an espresso and the perfect way to ease into the day. I've looked for these cookies in NYC but I've had no luck. I've found cookies that look similar in bakeries in Little Italy but they’re tasteless and rock hard. The closest thing I found are by an Italian company called Primo Pan, which are nice and hearty but a little more buttery than the cookies I remember. I can’t wait to try this recipe.
I'm going to try the cookies with chopped figs - my mouth is already salivating. I also like her Sailor's Bread - a treat I make just for myself - a piece with coffee in the afternoon alone.
I never tire of new chocolate chip cookie recipes. Merci pour la nouvelle recette!
That is certainly one of the many nice recipes from that book. My copy of it has gotten pretty worn over the years. If you ever get a copy again, you should try the marasche - basically almond paste wrapped around an Amarena cherry and baked. They are really, really lovely.
These cookies sound delightful. I just jotted the recipe down to try them myself. I love reading your blog... not just for the recipes... but for your extraordinary writing. Like Cookin' Canuck said, it just draws me in. And l also enjoy the glimpses into Parisian life. Thank you.
These look amazing. I was kind of bummed to see the glaze go but definitely don't need the extra sugar!
I have never had a cornmeal cookie. Isn't it awful? Thanks for the recipe, I'm sure they are as yummy as they look.
Like you said, Italian cookies aren't as sweet or as rich, but they don't need to be. They use ingredients that have flavor as well as being the structual component for many of their cookies. It's seems the U.S. uses plain wheat flour mostly and occasionally oatmeal or coconut, but still a lot of flour, that needs to be sweetened by sugar and flavored with something else. We tend to use molassas or chocolate or cinnamon as the majority of "other flavors" in the cookies. And we seem to love cookies chewy, so there is more fat and eggs in ours as well. I love the idea of another structural base, like cornmeal or sesame or nuts as the structural component, with flour only used enough to hold it together and sugar enough to enhance the flavor and not some much fat. Cookies don't always have to be rich with fat! Although..I have to admit, there's still nothing that compares to shortbread. I love butter as the flavoring agent, too, and it's crispy but tender!
Mmm these sound delicious! I'm looking forward to making them when I get home tonight. :)
I also love zaletti – I discovered them via seriouseats a few months ago and had some amazing cornmeal (from the farm that grows huitlacoche, among other things, for Rick Bayless’s restaurants).
My own favorite fruit addition is dried blueberries soaked in a bit of cachaça. I like to give them a brief dip before baking in a plate of raw sugar: here are mine.
Ah, you sent me straight to my bookshelf for this one! I got my copy of The Italian Baker years ago after seeing Carol Field on one of Julia Child's series (In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs, maybe?). I used to make her Pane Pugliese and grissini all the time, as well as the brutti ma buoni. Thanks for reminding me of the zaletti (I have that page bookmarked, but have no notes indicating that I ever made them). I'll be trying the crumiri ("Buttery Horseshoe-shaped Cookies from Piedmont") on the following page, too, perhaps when the weather cools off enough to consider turning on the oven.
Brutti Ma Buoni, the Italians have a great sense of humor and seem to not care about appearances when it comes to what they eat.
Your cookies look belli E buoni! (pretty *and* good).
Magda
That looks great but do you really need to use polenta? Do you think corn meal would work?
Yes, the French are our next door neighbours, in any sense. In Italy we call them 'I nostri vicini francesi' or even better 'cugini d'oltralpe', cousins from beyond the Alps. Funnily enough, years ago a French acquaintance addressed me with the same expression (in French obviously), then if the relation between the two folks is of such a brotherly nature, well it has to be seen; there are many contentious issues, food being a capital one.
The biscuits/cookies look delicious and I can't wait to make them.
Thank you again, regards
Enzo
For me it's good air dried bacon and French unsalted butter with a crispy baguette.
I am definitely going to try these. I am a bit of a fanatic about the cornmeal that I buy and if I find something fresh and course or stone ground, I grab it. The type of cornmeal that I use in my cornbread, polenta and other recipes makes a huge difference. So now I am spoiled, but I have a pretty adequate supply of excellent quality ground cornmeal in my freezer. None of that grocery stuff for me, especially on the east coast.
Love your site.
Someone on the internetz ALWAYS has to have that ONE know-it-all, or odd comment I guess their life is not complete without it being stated...
My husband is born and bred (southern) Polish -- and considers his neighbor to be the Czech Republic...sharing a border. I don't think it is an American thing at all to think that way - I have Nederlans friends that consider whomever they border with a neighbor...I get so weary of all the generalisations ON the generalisations of Americans. WHICH by the way - to me, American means North, South America -- so I always say U.S. citizens.
ANYHOO - I love~ love making all things with cornmeal, and I have never ever used a fine grind. Thanks for this divine offering. (for the secret code needed for commenting: will you now accept "the neighborhood next to Italy" ? ;P
These sound great. I'll give 'em a go at the weekend!
As for a dried fruit suggestion, I've used barberries with great success in other cookies and think I'll use 'em again here.
Best regards,
Adam
These look like the perfect not-too-sweet cookie for work. We've started having an afternoon tea break and it's nice to make something that isn't going to lead to a massive group sugar crash.
Ha, ugly but good. I feel like that suits a lot of good cooking - it may not look the best, but it is homey and amazing. Thanks for the recipe!
These sound perfect and I'm glad that they aren't too sweet. A nice lemon glaze sounds perfect, but ice cream sounds better.
Is there a reason that you slice your cookies instead of scooping the dough out?
At our house we always say, "I'll be fine after some refreshments..." This would fit the category quite nicely I think. But question - Is cornmeal preferable?
Joy and urmomcooks: I've not tried cornmeal because I like these cookies just as they are. But if you do try it, let me know how they turn out.
Angela: I like the way they look sliced, and they get crisper. But I have instructions for both, so you can do them either way.
eko: Thanks. Am not sure why one wouldn't consider a bordering a country a neighbor. But I love Italy and am happy they're just a few hours away. (I like Spain, Germany, and Belgium, too.)
Tracy: Her Crumiri recipe is pretty great, if I remember.
Thank you, David! I'm currently in love with cornmeal (have made polenta for dinner five of seven nights this past week) and definitely fall into the 'preferring-less-sweet-desserts' category. I think I'll make this on the weekend, though perhaps with dried cranberries instead of currants...