Torcettini De St. Vincent (Sugar Crusted Twisted Cookies from Valle de Aosta)

It's that time of the month again....WE KNEAD TO BAKE TIME... :) and this time I made it to the deadline. This month's baking challenge is about Italian yeasted cookies. I had never heard of them, till +Aparna Balasubramanian announced the challenge at the beginning of this month. The recipe is quite simple and low on added sugar. The cookies are flavorful, somewhat like pretzels...crispy on the outside, and bready on the inside....

From Aparna's description:

""Torcettini are smaller versions of Torcetti (meaning small twists), and these pear/ teardrop shaped twists are made of a dough of flour, yeast and butter which are shaped and then rolled in sugar before being baked. These biscuits/ cookies are synonymous with the town of Saint Vincent in Valle d'Aosta, a small mountainous region in North-Western Italy, even though they’re well known throughout the Piedmont region as well.

This recipe is adapted from the one in Nick Malgieri’s “A Baker’s Tour”. Traditionally these biscuits/ cookies are shaped by rolling out bits of dough into “ropes” and then pinching the ends together to form a “teardrop” shape. These are shaped by crossing the rope of dough near the ends to pretty looking twists.""

I made them chocolate flavored, and covered them with orange zest flavored sugar and sprinkles. 

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup salt
• 1 tsp orange zest
• 40 gm unsalted butter, cold and cut to pieces
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar for rolling the cookies (I used multi colored sugar sprinkles)
• 1-2 tbsp regular sugar plus 1/4 tsp orange zest 

Recipe:

• Add yeast to warm water and keep it aside to froth for 5-7 minutes.

• Add cocoa powder and salt to the flour in a large mixing bowl and mix them well.

• Add orange zest.

• Add butter pieces to the flour-cocoa and pulse with a hand blender with bread attachment till it resembles coarse bread crumbs.(You can do this with food processor or with a hand whisk too)

• Now, add the yeast-water and process till it all comes together.

• Knead with hands for 3-4 mins to form a smooth dough.

• Cover with a clean kitchen towel or a cling wrap and leave it aside to rise.

• The dough wont rise much, but when u see a honeycomb like consistency  cover the dough with a cling wrap and refrigerate it for an hour.(or overnight)

• I kept the dough overnight in the fridge. The next day, unwrap the dough....flour the work surface...and roll the dough about 8-9 inches square.

• Cut them in equal squares with a pizza cutter.

• Shape each square to a cylindrical rope. Use the corners to make the ropes approximately same size as the others.

• Roll the dough ropes in sprinkles and shape them to a loop.

• You can use regular sugar too, I added 1/4 tsp of orange zest to the sugar.

• Line a baking tray with foil and grease it with butter. (You can use parchment paper too). Put all the cookies about 1 inch apart, and bake them in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 25-30 mins. 

• Once out of the oven, remove them carefully with a spatula when they are warm.
• Leave them to cool.
• Store in airtight container. Tastes best fresh out of oven. 

Quantity:

• Makes 20-24 cookies

Notes:

• You can make them plain, with Lemon/lime flavor. Use zest of lime or lemon and do not use cocoa powder
• If you are not using the parchment paper, remove the cookies from the foil or baking tray when they are warm, carefully with a spatula. The sugar - caramel coating will harden and the cookies will stick to the foil/tray and break if u try to remove them when they are cool.