Cucciddati, also known as Sicilian or Italian fig cookies, are typical Sicilian Christmas cookies with a tart-sweet filling with figs, nuts, raisins and Marsala. Here you can find the recipe!
Cucciddati are known among other things as Italian or Sicilian fig cookies. Figs dominate here. Together with the nuts and the Marsala they get a powerful taste. Not everyone likes this. I begged a friend from Sicily for recipes several times before she gave me this one. She doesn’t like them much herself.
My first reaction was also: quite tart and bitter. And then all of a sudden I had nibbled a second one from the cookie plate unknowingly… These are brilliant! Especially because they are a contrast to the otherwise always so sweet rest! Once something completely different than the German and Austrian cookie classics. They will definitely be made again!
Baking Christmas cookies in India
I’m currently baking my Christmas cookies in Mumbai – you can find out why here. This means that some things work a bit differently than in Germany and I have to improvise with some ingredients. For the Cucciddati, for example, I had to replace the Marsala in the recipe. You can’t get it so easily here. With port wine, however, you can replace it quite well. I hope the outcry among Sicilian purists is not too big 😋.
With the cookies you should make sure that all ingredients are always nice and cool. I tried making them in the evening. That was a disaster. It was just too warm in my apartment from the daytime sun. Then this morning I tried my luck again. And it worked right away without any problems. But after half an hour, I already felt it getting warmer in the apartment. The dough became much softer.
With the citrus peels, please make sure to use organic fruit. Especially citrus fruits are treated with strong pesticides, because the thick peel protects the fruit itself from the pesticide and is normally not consumed.
Since I halved the amount of the basic recipe for my recipe below, you actually only need half an egg white for the frosting. However, that is a bit difficult to beat stiff. So here’s what I recommend: beat the whole egg white until almost completely stiff. Then remove half before adding the sugar. You can make a fluffy omelet with the remaining egg yolk and, if necessary, another egg.
All of my other Christmas cookie recipes you’ll find here.
Cucciddati – Recipe for Italian fig cookies from Sicily
Ingredients
For the dough
- 340 g flour
- 190 g butter
- 8 g baking powder
- 125 g powdered sugar
- 25 g apricot jam alternatively orange or tangerine jam
- 1 egg
- 1 pinch vanilla
- lemon zest of 1 lemon
For the filling
- 200 g dried figs
- 75 g raisins
- 75 g apricot jam
- 50 g orange
- 100 g dark chocolate
- 50 g walnuts
- 50 g almonds
- 2 ½ tangerine peels zested and chopped, see text
- ½ Tbsp ground cinnamon
- 1 pinch ground pepper
- 1 pinch vanilla
- 25 ml Marsala
For the decoration
- 75 g powdered sugar
- ½ egg white
- juice of ¼ lemon
- sugar sprinkles colorful
Instructions
The dough
- First: the recipe is for a shortbread dough. Even though the base recipe calls for soft butter in chunks – I use chilled butter for shortbread. It will come more crumbly that way.
- Mix the flour with the baking powder.
- Now knead this with the powdered sugar, grated lemon zest, butter pieces, vanilla, egg and 25 g jam.
- Do not knead it too long, otherwise it will not stay crumbly.
- Put the dough ball in the fridge preferably overnight, but at least 3-4 hours.
The filling
- Blanch the figs in hot water for 5 minutes. Let them drain and cool.
- Cut them into small pieces and set aside.
- Also blanch the raisins for 5 minutes. Then squeeze them and add the squeezed raisins to the figs.
- Chop the chocolate into small pieces.
- Also chop the walnuts and almonds.
- Remove the peel from the tangerines with a fine knife or peeler and also chop them.
- Add apricot and orange marmalade, chocolate, walnuts, almonds, cinnamon, pepper, vanilla, Marsala and tangerine peel to the mixture.
- Now knead everything, put it in an airtight container and put it in the fridge. The mixture should be really cold, this will make the filling and rolling of the cookies much easier later.
Preparation of the cookies
- Roll out a quarter of the dough, about 10 cm wide and as long as the dough allows. It should be about 3 mm thick.
- Cut the edges straight.
- Now put the filling sausage-shaped in the middle of the dough.
- Now roll them up. Be careful, as the dough gets warmer, it tears more easily.
- Flatten the roll a bit and cut 2-5 cm wide pieces from the roll as you like.
- For the professionals: there is a tool called pizzichi, with which you can make decorative holes in the dough. Just google it.Otherwise, do as I do and use a fork or knife. These holes are typical of cucciddati. See photo.
- Now place the cucciddati on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and refrigerate covered for 3-4 hours before baking.
- Then bake them in a preheated oven at 170 °C for about 25 minutes.
Decorating the cookies
- Decorate one half of the cookies with powdered sugar, which you sprinkle directly through a sieve.
- For the other half, whip the egg whites and add 75 g of powdered sugar and the lemon juice. Continue beating until you have a smooth, thick mixture.
- Coat the remaining cucciddati with this mixture and sprinkle with the sugar sprinkles.
- Then place the cookies with the icing in the oven for another 4 minutes at 150°C. Reduce the heat to really low. Reduce the heat to 150 °C, otherwise the icing will turn brown.
- Let them cool down and store them in an airtight tin. They should keep in there for a few weeks. Unless you are faster 😉.
Please rate my recipe before you leave 🙂:
Source of the recipe for cucciddati: https://www.lapasticciona.it/2020/12/04/cucciddati-o-cuddureddi-siciliani/
Baked with lots of love ♥ on From zero to curry.
