The soft mostaccioli (also known as “mustacciuoli” or “mostazzoli”) are traditional Christmas sweets from Campania that are a must-have on holiday tables alongside roccocò and struffoli.
The Christmas cookies are my passion; I always make a lot of them along with traditional Bolognese sweets like the panone and the pinza.
I had been wanting to try them for a while, and today, after reading dozens of articles, I decided to make them. They are really special and also very simple to make. These cookies are found throughout southern Italy with different, yet similar recipes.
The dough of the mostaccioli is soft, aromatic, and spicy; after mixing the ingredients, let it rest for 1 hour, then cut it with a diamond-shaped cookie cutter (I didn’t have one, so I used a simple kitchen knife) and bake for 10/12 minutes. Once cool, glaze with dark chocolate.
The key ingredient of mostaccioli is “pisto”, a spice blend used in many Christmas recipes. In Bologna, a similar mix can be found in supermarkets under the name “spices for panone”, and it’s practically identical.
If you can’t find “pisto,” you can make it at home with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, coriander, and star anise.
Perfect for Christmas gifts, they keep well in tin boxes or special cookie bags.
Here are some ideas for your Christmas cookie box:
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Medium
- Preparation time: 30 Minutes
- Portions: 20 Pieces
- Cooking methods: Electric oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Fall, Winter, Christmas
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup almonds (chopped)
- 5 tbsps honey
- 4 tbsps apricot jam (or other jam to taste)
- cup sugar
- cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tsp pisto (if you can't find it, you can make it at home with 3 g of cinnamon and 1 gram of mixed spices (cloves, nutmeg, coriander, star anise))
- 1 tsp baking ammonia
- cup orange juice (or water or cooked must (I used cooked must))
- 1 tsp orange zest (grated)
- 10 oz dark chocolate 60%
Tools
- 2 Bowls
- 1 Scale
- 1 Cutting board
- 1 Cookie cutter for mostaccioli
- 1 Baking tray
- 1 Cooling rack
- 1 Whisk
Steps
Chop the almonds finely with a knife or in a food processor.
In a bowl, add the flour, chopped almonds, cocoa powder, baking ammonia, and pisto, and mix well.
In another bowl, combine the honey, jam, orange juice, and sugar. Mix with a whisk, then pour everything into the bowl with the dry ingredients. Knead the mixture until you get a soft, slightly sticky dough.
Do not add flour; for easier handling, place it in the fridge for 1 hour wrapped in cling film.
After the rest, transfer the dough onto the cutting board, lightly flour it on both sides, and roll it out with a rolling pin to a thickness of ⅓ inch.
Use the mostaccioli cutter to cut out diamond shapes and place them on the baking tray, spacing them apart. If you don’t have the cutter, you can use a knife.
Re-knead the scraps and cut out more mostaccioli.
Bake the mostaccioli in a preheated oven at 350°F for 12 minutes.
The mostaccioli should remain soft; the baking time may vary by a few minutes (every oven has different power), but be careful not to overbake them, or they will become hard.
Take them out of the oven and let them cool completely.
All cookies containing baking ammonia should rest for a day before being consumed. I know many don’t do this, but in pastry courses, they taught me to wait a day before enjoying them. If you prefer, glaze them immediately. I cover them with cling film and glaze them the next day.
After resting, proceed with the glazing.
Chop the dark chocolate coarsely and melt it in the microwave or a bain-marie.
Dip one mostacciolo at a time into the melted chocolate to cover it completely, using a fork to help.
Place them on a cooling rack to let the excess chocolate drip off.
Transfer them to a baking tray lined with parchment paper and let them dry at room temperature for a few hours.
The soft mostaccioli are ready to be enjoyed.
Advice
Storage
The soft mostaccioli keep for 1 month in a tin box or special cookie bags.
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FAQ (Questions and Answers)
Why did my mostaccioli become hard?
The softness of the mostaccioli depends on the cooking time; the more they are cooked, the harder they become
Why is the chocolate I used to glaze the mostaccioli very thick?
Chocolate becomes thick when it contains little cocoa butter; for coating, a more fluid chocolate should be used. It is commonly available in commercial form, usually in pellets.
How can I make the melted chocolate more fluid?
To make chocolate more fluid, add a small amount of melted cocoa butter—two tablespoons per 300 g is enough. Cocoa butter can be purchased online.
Why does the chocolate I used to glaze the mostaccioli have white streaks?
The streaks are due to cocoa butter rising to the surface, which happens when chocolate is not tempered.
