Baci di Dama (Ladies’ Kisses)

I first read about these Italian cookies on Cream Puffs in Venice, where Ivonne made them from a recipe in Gina DePalma’s cookbook, Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen.  She said they were some of the best cookies she’d made all year, which put them high up on my holiday baking list.  As I do not own this cookbook, I used this recipe from Gourmet Traveler instead.  I modified the recipe since I was not able to find pure icing sugar and my cookies did not rise as beautifully as I they should have (I used confectioners, which I think has cornstarch added in, and may have been the source of my problems?).  They were still yummy and so delicate…very crumbly and had a nice orangey taste.  While I was a bit dissapointed that they did not come out as I had imagined, their simplicity stood out and was refreshing!  I did not end up sandwiching the biscuits with the chocoloate filling, but instead left them plain or dipped them half-way in pure melted dark chocolate.  I fell in love with the chocolate-orange combo, and this was my favorite way of eating them.