Make Ahead
Zaletti
- Prep time 1 hour 30 minutes
- Cook time 12 minutes
- makes about 4 dozen
Author Notes
I first tasted these delicious little currant-studded cornmeal cookies years ago in a great little bakery in Woodstock, Vermont named Pane e Salute (Italian for “Bread and Health”). The owner and baker, Caleb Barber, was producing authentic artisanal breads, cookies, and cakes using recipes and techniques he had learned as a baker’s apprentice in Italy. I loved everything I tasted there, especially these little gems, which he called “zaletti.”
Sipping a cappuccino one morning in Caleb’s kitchen, I was able to watch him kneading his zaletti dough. A few days later, I was back at home, trying out a recipe I had found in Carol Field’s book, The Italian Baker. I had to make some changes to get the dough moist enough to look like Caleb’s. Here’s my recipe for these simple yet sophisticated little cookies from Venice. Make them a day ahead. They're delicious on baking day, but even better a day or two later. —Margot Mustich
Ingredients
-
3/4 cup
dried currants
-
1/3 cup
dark rum (I use Myers’s “Original Dark” Jamaican rum)
-
160 grams
unsalted butter, at room temperature
-
120 grams
granulated sugar
-
2
large eggs, at room temperature
-
220 grams
all-purpose flour, plus 1 to 2 tablespoons for the currants
-
200 grams
corn flour or fine yellow cornmeal
-
2 teaspoons
baking powder
-
3/4 teaspoon
fine sea salt
Directions
- Soak the currants in the rum until plump and soft, at least one hour. Drain and reserve.
- Butter four baking sheets. Set aside.
- Beat the butter and sugar together in a mixer bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.
- Sift in the 220 grams of flour, corn flour, baking powder, and salt and mix well.
- Toss the currants with 1 to 2 tablespoons of flour and stir into the dough by hand.
- Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface. Knead lightly to form a uniform dough in which the currants are more or less evenly distributed.
- Roll into an 18-inch long oval log (at its widest point the oval should be about 2 inches across). Wrap in wax paper or plastic wrap and chill for about an hour.
- Preheat the oven to 350° F.
- Slice the chilled log on a bias at 3/8-inch intervals. Place the cookies about 2 inches apart on the buttered baking sheets (they will puff and spread as they bake).
- Bake until lightly browned, about 10 to 12 minutes. Cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes before removing to racks to finish cooling.
- Store in an airtight container.
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