Sweet Bakery

Sweet bakery covers the biscuits, cookies and cakes made to keep at room temperature, from crisp almond biscuits and butter shortbread to panettone, the tall Italian cake raised with a natural starter.

How to choose Sweet Bakery

  • Almond share. Italian amaretti labels must state how much almond and apricot kernel the biscuits hold. Tuscan almond biscuits sold under the IGP mark, an EU name tied to a place and its recipe, finish with at least 20 percent whole, unpeeled almonds.
  • The word panettone. In Italy the name is reserved for a cake raised with natural sourdough. Measured on the dry weight of the dough, it holds at least 16 percent butter fat, 4 percent egg yolk and 20 percent raisins and candied citrus peel.
  • Crisp or soft. Hard almond biscuits such as cantucci, dried to 3 to 7 percent moisture, are traditionally dipped in a sweet wine like vin santo. Soft amaretti are a separate style, with their own rules in the Italian decree.

About Sweet Bakery

Sweet bakery means the baked sweets made to travel and keep: dry biscuits, wafers, sponge fingers and enriched holiday cakes. Most are baked low in moisture, which is what lets them sit in a tin.

Each style follows its own recipe, and Italian rules fix several of them. Savoiardi, the Italian sponge fingers, are made from sugar, flour and whole eggs, must be at least 26 percent egg, and finish between 4 and 12 percent moisture. Tuscan cantucci are made from flour, whole almonds, sugar, eggs, butter and a little honey.

Set crisp almond biscuits out after dinner with a glass of vin santo, the sweet Tuscan wine they are traditionally dipped in.

At a glance

Main types
Biscotti, amaretti, sponge fingers, butter biscuits, panettone
Label terms
Lievito naturale (natural sourdough), IGP, percent almonds
Serve with
Vin santo or another sweet wine
Unopened
Packaged cookies about 2 months, box tightly closed

Sweet Bakery questions

Are biscotti always baked twice?

Not always. Under the protected rules for Tuscan cantucci, the dough is shaped into logs, baked once and cut on the diagonal, and a second bake of up to 20 minutes is optional. Either way the finished biscuit holds only 3 to 7 percent moisture, so it is hard enough to dip into wine without falling apart.

What goes into amaretti?

Italian rules list sugar, egg white and almonds or apricot kernels, which Italians call armelline, used alone or together. The kernels must make up at least 13 percent of the recipe. Flour is not on the required list, so the body of the biscuit comes from ground kernels, sugar and egg white rather than from wheat.

How long do packaged cookies and biscuits keep?

Packaged cookies keep about 2 months at room temperature in a tightly closed box, by Kansas State University's guidance. Homemade cookies last 2 to 3 weeks in an airtight container. Moist, perishable cookies, such as many homemade soft or filled kinds, belong in the refrigerator.

Sources: Italian Ministerial Decree on baked sweets (panettone, amaretti, savoiardi); Cantucci Toscani PGI specification; Kansas State University Research and Extension.

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