A super easy recipe to make vegan gluten free Baci di Dama at home! Few simple ingredients to bake these traditional Italian hazelnut cookies filled with chocolate. A crumbly and delicious treat!
Don't miss this post with the best gluten free vegan cookie recipes for many scrumptious treats!
Baci di Dama, which translates to "Lady's Kisses" in English, are delightful Italian cookies originating from the Piedmont region. These delicious treats consist of two small hazelnut-based cookies sandwiched together with a layer of chocolate. The cookies have a crumbly texture that almost melts in your mouth, and they are traditionally made with a combination of finely ground hazelnuts, butter, sugar, and flour.
Ingredients
This recipe for gluten free baci di dama is one of the oldest from my blog and after several years I felt it needed a makeover.
And as I love to simplify things as much as possible, I also reduced the number of ingredients, so that they are even easier to make!
Here's what you will need:
- hazelnut flour, or you can grind whole azelnuts yourself. It can replaced or mixed with almond flour too if you want
- brown rice flour and gluten free starch (I use potato starch, but you can choose others)
- sugar, white or brown
- vegan butter or margarine
- optional, you can add a few drops of hazelnut or almond extract for extra flavor
- your favorite dairy free dark chocolate or vegan chocolate spread.
Instructions
Making these gluten free vegan hazelnut cookies is quick and calls for simple steps and little equipment.
- While the oven warms up, add sugar and butter to a bowl
- Add the flours and mix with a spoon, then with your hand
- Roll dough into small balls, a spoonful at a time (or less for smaller cookies)
- Bake until bottom is golden brown and let cool down
- Pair the cookies with a layer of chocolate spread in the middle and enjoy!
As you can see they are very simple to make. You will be able to enjoy your gluten free Lady's Kisses in less than an hour (cooling-down time included!).
In my old recipe I used flax egg as an additional binding agent, but I'm happy to say you don't really need it. You will have crumbly and melt-in-your-mouth hazelnut cookies only with vegan butter/margarine.
Cooking in grams
I cook and bake in grams as they are more accurate (than cups) when measuring ingredients. This is especially important when it comes to gluten free and vegan recipes.
Also, I weigh both dry and wet ingredients in grams and most of the time I share one- or two-bowl recipes, to make everything easier for you.
A simple affordable kitchen scale is definitely a useful and worthy investment for your gluten free cooking.
So you will simply need to place the bowl on the scale and weigh ingredients as you go!
If you make this recipe or have questions, leave me a comment down here! And a 5 star rating if you have loved it would help me grow the blog 😉
For all the updates, follow me on Pinterest and Instagram and tag me if you make this or any of my recipes! I absolutely LOVE to see what you make and share it in my stories!
Ciao!
Sonia
📖 Full Recipe
Gluten free Vegan Baci di Dama (Italian Hazelnut Cookies)
Equipment
- 1 bowl
- 1 whisk/hand mixer/spoon
- 1 baking pan
- 1 kitchen scale
Ingredients
- 50 grams hazelnut flour or ground hazelnuts (or almond flour)
- 70 grams brown rice flour, gluten free
- 50 grams gluten free starch
- 30 grams sugar, white or brown
- 70 grams softened margarine or vegan butter
- 3-4 drops of hazelnut ot almond extract (optional)
- vegan chocolate (hazelnut) spread
Instructions
- Pre heat oven at 160 C / 320 F
- Add softened margarine and sugar to a bowl
- Add flours, starch and salt, mix with a spoon and then with your hand, squeezing all the ingredients together until you have a uniform dough
- Divide the dough using an ice cream scoop or simply a spoon and roll it into small balls
- Place them on a baking tray and flatten them slightly with your hand
- Bake for 20 minutes, or until the bottom of the cookies is light brown
- Let cool down completely, then sandwich them together with a layer of chocolate spread
- Keep them in an airtight container to preserve the crumble (best in the refrigerator in the warm season)
Caroline says
Made these with almond flour and came out great. I am going to make a bunch and gift them to some friends too next time
Mihaela says
Very good! I made them with ghee and tapioca. Next time, I'll definitely try substituting the sugar with date syrup.
Sweet Sensitive Free says
Great! Glad you enjoyed these cookies!!
Kelly says
Hello … so excited to make these.
I have one question: in the instructions, you say to put the butter and sugar in a bowl, but then you don’t say what to do with it and then the next step is to add the dry ingredients. Are you just inevitably putting everything in the bowl and mixing them together with a spoon and your hands? You don’t pre-mix the butter and sugar together by hand or in mixer or anything?
Any help is appreciated thank you!
Sweet Sensitive Free says
Hi! You're right, I should have been more precise with the instructions, thank you for the feedback.
I personally simply add all the dough ingredients in the bowl and mix them with a spoon/fork first, pressing and mixing them, and then do the same with my hand until everything is incorporated. You can definitely try with a hand mixer, the end result should be the pretty similar. The important thing is having a dough that can be rolled into ca. one inch balls. Let me know if you need anything else!