I tasted a cookie very much like the Nocciolata you see above on our recent trip to Italy. It was on the Isle of Capri. The Nocciolata on Capri however were formed into round balls and studded with whole hazelnuts. Absolutely delicious!

When we returned home I wanted to duplicate those amazing cookies. But do you think I could find any recipe on the Internet that came even remotely close to what I tasted that day? Heck no! So although the following recipe below is for a bar cookie, the taste is as close as I can come to the Niccolata I fell in love with on Capri.

I have always prided myself on not only preparing delicious food, but serving it in an attractive manner. To my thinking presentation is a very important aspect of the whole culinary experience. But sometimes, call it a momentary loss of good karma, or whatever other term you prefer to use to describe that moment in time when the world alignment seems to shift and you are caught in the fallout. That is just what happened to me yesterday afternoon and why the picture of my Nocciolata looks a little less than presentable. Heck, the cookies don’t even look edible, much less presentable! But there is an explanation and I feel duty bound to share it with you. (They say confession is good for the soul. Plus, I really don’t want you to think that I make a habit of taking cookies to share with others that look like the picture above!)

Every Tuesday we have a rehearsal that starts at 7:00pm in Seattle. And yesterday, we had three stops to make on our way into town. That meant that we had to leave the house by 2:00pm. OK, my ears heard what Mr. C. told me at breakfast about what time we had to leave that afternoon, but apparently my brain was not paying close enough attention (not a rare occurrence anymore). So I blithely went about my day finishing my blog post on Italian Bean Soup, answering a few emails, and starting a batch of Nocciolata to share with the gang at rehearsal. At about 1:10pm the cookies weren’t quite ready to be put in the oven when Mr. C. reminded me of the time. I panicked. I hadn’t had lunch, hadn’t practiced my music, hadn’t put on my head (not an easy task at my age) or changed my cloths. Basically I was about an hour behind.

So I quickly finished preparing the cookies, got them in the oven, slammed down some soup, put on my head and changed my cloths. By 1:55pm, after having just taken the cookies out of the oven, I headed downstairs with my purse and the hot pan of cookies (complete with two bulky pot holders). And of course because I was on fast forward, I thought I could hold my purse, and the cookies, open the basement door and push the garage door opener in one elegant and smooth movement. (Setting the cookies down on the entrance table would have caused a 10 second delay you see.)

Well all went well until I caught the edge of the cookie pan on the door. And in what seemed like 30 seconds (why do these sort of things always look like they are in slow motion?) the pan had flown out of my hands and landed on the carpet in our hallway with half the cookies on the floor. So I did what any intelligent, totally together woman would do under the circumstances. I screamed at the top of my lungs.

This brought Mr. C. running at full tilt down the stairs to see if I was OK. When he arrived and found that I had not broken anything and there was no blood, he proved to me once again why he is the best husband in the world. Instead of yelling at me for screaming and causing him to react in a manner that might have caused him bodily injury, he quietly said “oh honey, I’m sorry about the cookies. Are you OK”?

Am I OK? No, I’m not OK! I’m a raving idiot. Who in their right mind screams over something as insignificant as spilled cookies? But I was so frustrated with myself, that had I not screamed, I’m quite sure my head would have exploded. Really!

So we cleaned up the mess, put the pan with the remaining cookies in the car, and off we went. For the next 15 minutes I verbally berated myself for being such a dunce. By the time I calmed down, we were both laughing.  I at my bizarre behavior, and Mr. C. because he said he had never heard me make a sound like that before.

Moral of the story: Getting through life with your sanity intact involves learning to forgive yourself even when you sometimes act like a darn fool. That husbands who still love you even when you react as stupidly as I did yesterday are worth all the flour and sugar in the greater Puget Sound area. And last but not least, people will eat homemade cookies even if they look like hell!

1 1/2 c. shelled hazelnuts
2 1/2 c. unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 1/4 c. granulated sugar
1/2 lb. (2 sticks) butter, melted and cooled

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the hazelnuts on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes or until fragrant and the skins begin to flake. Remove from oven and place the hot nuts in a clean dish towel. Roll up the towel and let the nuts sit (steam) for about ten minutes and then rub the nuts in the towel briskly to remove as much of the skin as possible. (Some skin will be left on the nuts. Not too worry.)  Let them cool completely and then chop into fairly small pieces.

Take about a fifth of the huts and whirl them in a food processor until they are finely ground. Do not make a paste out of the nuts, but you want them very finely chopped.

In a large bowl combine the flour and sugar. Pour in the melted butter and combine the mixture well. (I use a standard old fashioned table knife to stir the ingredients. No mixer required.) Stir in the finely and the coarsely chopped nuts. The mixture will be stiff. Gently pat dough into a buttered 9×13-inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until nicely browned. (This is one cookie you do not want to undercook! It should be kind of crumbly when you eat it, and only sufficient baking time is going to help create the perfect texture.) Remove from oven and cut into squares while the bars are still warm. Allow to cool completely before serving.