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Italian Cookies at the Panificio

Lacking my own recipe, I have embarked on a search for a recipe to approximate the nut-covered almond cookies I have found in the best panificio's. They seem to come in different shapes and rolled with different chopped nuts, but many exude that floral scent of almonds.


The panificio in Rome, where Doug and I bought panini for lunch, baked a particularly lovely assortment, all displayed with names of each cookie. Pinolate were covered in pine nuts (pinoli or pignoli). Bocconcini del Nonno are "grandfather's morsels," covered in sliced almonds. Brutti ma Buoni are made with another type of nut meat or flour. I believe the ones we got were made with hazelnuts, but some recipes online call for a mixture of hazelnuts and almonds. The only requirement is that they be brownish and rough textured, enough to be "ugly but good," as their name dictates.

See this link for the controversy about how to spell pine nuts in Italian - pinoli vs. pignoli.
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