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Day 5 of Cookiemas 2025
My siblings and cousin loved these so much they took it home!
These are called Roccoco Napoletani, which are cookies from Naples, Italy. Apparently these were invented by nuns back in the 1300s. Over 700 years later and now it’s on Cookiemas.
A dear viewer requested a cookie with warm spices, so you’ve got cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and even more ingredients like orange zest, citrus peel, and almonds. I saw other variations of this recipe as well, with hazelnuts, anise, honey, etc. It’s a loaded cookie, and has all the spices and flavors that remind me of a European holiday.
I learned how to make these from Memorie Di Angelina who has a very good recipe. However, I made some adjustments, notably the bake time and used specifically nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon for the “spices”
Step-by-Step: How to Make Roccoco
For full list of ingredients and detailed steps, check out the bottom of this page.
Making Roccoco is pretty simple. Just mix all the dry ingredients together and then use water to bind it all together and make a sticky dough. Shape then bake and enjoy!
Chop the toasted almonds roughly. Then, in a mixing bowl, add the flour, sugar, baking powder, and spices.
Then zest an orange and add the lemon peel.
Add some of the water and mix. Add more to get a very sticky dough. Remember, you can always add but you can’t remove the water!
Shape into rings, brush with egg wash, and bake at 350 for 20 – 30 minutes.
Once they are done cooling, enjoy!
Recipe
Roccoco (Neapolitan Christmas Cookie)
Ingredients
Method
- Preheat oven to 350℉
- Toast your almonds if they are not already. If your almonds are whole, roughly chop them.
- In a mixing bowl, roughly mix the chopped almonds, all-purpose flour, sugar, baking soda, ground nutmeg, ground clove, and ground cinnamon.
- Zest an orange over the bowl and mix again. Drop in the lemon peel. Mix a little.
- To be conservative, add about 80ml of water and mix. Then slowly add more to get a very sticky dough. See photos for reference.
- I recommend using a silicone baking mat for this part. Divide the dough into 12 equal portions. Then roll out into a log and join the two ends to form a circle. Try to aim for a cookie about 4 inches across.
- Place these on a baking pan lined with parchment paper and brush with a beaten egg (AKA egg wash).
- Bake in the oven at 350℉ for 20-30 minutes until cookies start to brown. Add more baking time if you want crisper cookies.
- Remove fro the oven and let cool before serving.
Notes
Tools and Equipment
Ozeri Food Scale
Especially with baking, a food scale is extremely helpful as it measures weight, not volume, which is more accurate. You should use weight measurements if a recipe provides them.
Diced Lemon Peel
I wanted to show this just as an example of the lemon peel that I used. I was able to find it during this holiday season at my local supermarket.
Silicone Baking Mat (Silpat)
This is the silicone baking mat I use most often. I use it more for shaping and portioning rather than actual baking but this is what you would want to use for macarons.
Other Cookie Recipes
This was Day 5 of Cookiemas! Here’s the other days:
- Caramel Cuts. Really just brown sugar blondies. Very soft and tasty from Doug’s childhood
- Anzac Biscuits. An Australian oat cookie with coconut. I actually had to make this again at the request of my mom.
- Vaniljekranse. Danish Butter Cookies. Like the ones you find in the tins.
- Sagu Keju. Tapioca and Cheese Cookies. Very powdery and cheesy.