Spiced Saba, Raisin, and Nut Cookies

There’s something about Italian sweets that fascinates me. Sometimes the flavor combinations are unexpected and delicious, and sometimes the draw is obvious as with gelato. I was happily transported to Italy and specifically with some recipes to Sardinia while reading my review copy of La Vita e Dolce: Italian–Inspired Desserts by Letitia Clark. Clark, and English pastry chef, wrote this book from her home in Sardinia just as the pandemic was getting started. She writes that she wanted to “cling to and celebrate those moments of sweet, everyday pleasure.” Making sweet treats at home is a simple way to experience and share a bit of joy each day. And for me, making and sharing Italian sweets is particularly enjoyable. I’ve posted before about my deep affection for anginetti cookies which are lemony, little round delights, and I was thrilled with pezzetti di cannella that bring together cocoa, cinnamon, and lemon zest in a fabulous, glazed cookie. And, of course, the savory-sweet combination of grapes and rosemary in schiacciata all’uva is divine. So, I couldn’t wait to peruse this new book. It includes cookies, tarts, cakes, spoonable sweets, yeasted and fried treats, gelato, and sweets to give as gifts. The recipes were all created in a very approachable manner for the home cook. I could spend serious time with the gelato chapter alone. From the Sparkling Lemon Sorbetto to the Ricotta and Fig Ripple Gelato, there are tips for best results and anecdotes about gelato shops in Italy. I got stuck in the Gifts chapter wanting to try the Chocolate, Hazelnut, and Sour Cherry Salame and realizing I’ve never made Panforte, yet. As I read through the book, I decided I need more Torta della Nonna in my life as well as Crostata de Marmellata. I quickly became jealous as Clark described the quality of the fruit available in Sardinia. Still, I want to try the Citrus, Campari, and Yoghurt Upside-Down Cake with what I can get here. First, though, the Pabassinus cookies or Spiced Saba, Raisin, and Nut Cookies had my full attention. The mix of cinnamon, cloves, aniseed, and lemon zest with saba and the nuts and raisins sounded like a combination I had to taste. The fact that the cookies are traditionally decorated with sprinkles just reinforced my interest in them. 

In the head note, it’s explained that the cookies’ name comes from the Sardinian word for raisin which is “pabassa.” Step one was procuring some saba, and that was easy enough with an online order. To begin the cookie dough, slivered almonds and walnuts were toasted and then chopped. The aniseed was toasted in a dry skillet and then crushed with a mortar and pestle. The raisins were soaked to plump them, and I used orange juice for that. The prepped nuts, aniseed, and drained raisins were mixed with flour, sugar, softened butter, egg, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, ground cloves, saba, and lemon zest to form a dough. After chilling the dough for 30 minutes, it was rolled and cut into diagonal shapes. The cut cookies were baked, cooled, and dipped into confectioner’s sugar glaze before being showered with sprinkles. 

How can sprinkles not make you happy? The idea of this book was to spread joy, and these cookies most definitely did that. I loved the mix of flavors from the spices, the brightness of the citrus zest, and the tangy sweetness of the saba. It’s going to be fun to have even more Italian sweet treats to enjoy at home and to share with others. 

Pabassinus


Spiced Saba, Raisin, and Nut Cookies

Recipe excerpted with permission from La Vita e Dolce: Italian–Inspired Desserts by Letitia Clark, published by Hardie Grant Books, June 2021. 

These little diamond-shaped biscuits are found all over Sardinia, with recipes differing from region to region. Pabassinus, deriving their name from the Sardinian word pabassa, which means ‘raisin’, are traditionally made for All Saints’ Day (1 November), the addition of spices, citrus zest and a large quantity of dried fruit and nuts being the edible markers of religious festivals. Crumbly, nutty and wonderfully spicy, they are so inseparable from the period leading up to Ognissanti that when I asked a friend if she would make them with me in September, she point-blank refused. I first made these with a friend’s aunt, who measured everything by eye (‘quanto basta!’) and baked them in a wood-fired oven as she had done on the same day every year for her entire life. Many households in Sardinia still have these ovens, which are lit for special occasions. Traditionally bread is baked first, then, as the temperature cools, the dolci are baked afterwards. Saba, or sapa is a dark, richly flavoured syrup made from cooked grape must. Traditionally in Sardinia this was also made from prickly pears (fichi d’India), which grow wild all over the countryside. They were gathered with canes and then boiled down with water to produce a thick, dusky syrup which was then used as a sweetener. Few people make this syrup now, but sapa made from grapes is still used for many traditional dolci. If you can’t find sapa, then a dark honey, black treacle or date molasses are all good substitutes. The biscuits are usually decorated with a simple white glacé icing and multi-coloured sprinkles (Sardinians are inordinately fond of sprinkles) but they are also very good un-iced and unsprinkled. They keep well in an airtight container for a few days. 

Makes 30 larger or 40 smaller cookies – enough for a festa 

100 g (3 1⁄2 oz) blanched almonds 

70 g (2 1⁄2 oz) walnuts
2 tsp aniseed


120 g (4 oz) raisins 

270 g (10 oz/2 1⁄4 cups) 00 or plain (all-purpose) flour, plus extra to dust 

140 g (4 1⁄2 oz/2 2⁄3 cups) sugar


120 g (4 oz) butter or lard, at room temperature


1 egg and 1 egg yolk


1⁄2 tsp salt


1 tsp baking powder


pinch of cinnamon


pinch of ground cloves (optional) 

1 tbsp saba


zest of 1 lemon


zest of 1 orange 

For the icing 

130 g (4 oz/1 cup) icing (confectioner’s) sugar 

2 tbsp lemon juice (juice of 1 lemon, roughly) 

sprinkles (optional) 

Preheat the oven to 180oC (350oF/Gas 4). Arrange the almonds over the base of a baking tray (pan) and roast in the oven until just lightly golden, about 8–10 minutes. Remove from the oven and chop the almonds lengthways into nibs. Chop the walnuts roughly. 

Toast the aniseed in a dry shallow pan for 1–2 minutes or until it begins to smell good. Remove and bash the seeds gently in a pestle and mortar, or in a deep bowl using the bottom of a rolling pin. Soak the raisins in boiling water (or tea or coffee or anything hot you have to hand – fennel tea would also be nice) until softened (around 3 minutes). Drain them well in a sieve, squeezing to remove any excess liquid. 

In a bowl, mix together the chopped nuts, bashed aniseed and soaked raisins with the rest of the ingredients using your hands (messy but satisfying) or using a wooden spoon until you have a smooth dough. Wrap the dough in clingfilm (plastic wrap) and leave to rest in the fridge while you clean up. Once the dough has rested for 30 minutes, roll it out on a work surface dusted with flour. Roll out to 1 cm (1⁄2 in) thickness, then cut diagonally into large-ish diamond shapes, re-rolling and cutting any edges until you have used all of the dough. 

Place on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment and bake for 12–15 minutes (keep a close eye on them as they burn fast). Remove and leave to cool. 

To make the icing, mix the icing sugar with the lemon juice in a small bowl until just at pouring consistency. Decorate the biscuits with the icing and sprinkles, if using.

Note: These are almost always made into rough diagonals here in Sardinia, but if you prefer to use your favorite cookie cutter then feel free to do so. They’d make very good Christmas cookies too.

I am a member of the Amazon Affiliate Program. 

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Chocolate-Oatmeal Almost Candy Bars

The other day, I mentioned that my blog had just become four years old. During those four years, I’ve visited lots of other blogs and seen lots of fabulous food. I’ve always enjoyed reading about the results of the different baking and cooking groups that show dishes from Dorie Greenspan’s books. I never got around to joining the groups since I knew I’d somehow manage to miss every deadline for posts, but every time I see a dish chosen by the groups, I can’t wait to try it. I think about that every time I open one of Dorie’s books. So, at last, I’ve baked the Chocolate-Oatmeal Almost Candy Bars from Baking: From My Home to Yours. Even though I’ve seen these bars on other blogs in the past, I didn’t quite realize what they're really like. These cookie bars are serious business. They’re crunchy, chewy, chocolaty, nutty, and delicious. Cutting these into small pieces is a good idea since they are filling, but I think they’re actually better than a candy bar. Dorie recommends serving them cold which keeps the layers firm, and I agree.

These bars are baked in a nine- by thirteen-inch baking pan, and the recipe makes a lot of cookies once they’re cut into small pieces. The bars can be frozen and thawed in the refrigerator. You start by making the oatmeal layer which becomes both the bottom surface and the crumble on top of the cookies. That’s made by creaming butter with brown sugar, then adding eggs and vanilla. Flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon are added next, and then oats and chopped peanuts are stirred into the dough. A couple of cups of dough are set aside, and the rest is pressed into the buttered baking pan. The chocolate layer was next, and that was made by melting chocolate chips with sweetened condensed milk, butter, and salt in the top of a double-boiler. Once melted, vanilla, raisins, and peanuts were added. The chocolate mixture was poured over the oatmeal layer in the baking pan, and the remaining oatmeal dough was scattered on top. The bars baked for about 30 minutes, were cooled, and then refrigerated before cutting.

It’s delightful knowing I have a stash of these bars in the freezer. They’re there for me any time I need a candy bar or cookie fix. They work for both kinds of cravings. And, when they run out, I’ll have to move on to something else I've read so much about over the last few years.

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Oatmeal Maple Bars

I just recently got a copy of the Greyston Bakery Cookbook, and as I read through the cakes chapter, I started mentally assigning each cake to a future occasion. The Mexican hot chocolate cake might be good for New Year’s, the steamed lemon cakelets would be lovely in the spring, maybe we should have the mocha kahlua cake on Christmas Eve, I want the fresh coconut mousse cake for my birthday, and the Bermudian rum cake would be great for next Monday because no other occasion was soon enough. After the cakes come the tarts which are followed by the cookies and bars. Since I wasn’t willing to wait for a special occasion to get baking, I decided to start with the oatmeal maple bars. All of these recipes come from the Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, New York which employs people from the community who may have previously had a hard time finding a stable job. Their made from scratch sweets are sold at the bakery, on the bakery’s web site and at shops and restaurants in New York City. There is much more information about the social mission of the bakery and the Greyston Foundation on their web site. I’ve never visited the bakery, but I had heard a lot about it, and the book came highly recommended.

As I wrote down a shopping list of ingredients for these bars, I kept flipping back to the page with the lime bars with white chocolate. In the end though, I chose to welcome the fall season with the flavors of oatmeal and maple. The bars are a mixture of oats, butter, sugar, pure maple syrup, eggs, vanilla, grated orange zest, raisins, and walnuts. The raisins were supposed to be currants, but for whatever reason, Whole Foods had no currants and I was too lazy to make another stop. The raisins were fine here, and the important thing was actually the orange zest. It definitely should not be skipped. The bars were baked in a nine-inch by thirteen-inch pan and then were left to cool. Once cool, a glaze made from butter, maple syrup, cream, and confectioner’s sugar was to have been drizzled on top. The photo in the book shows a nice, thick glaze that was drawn across the bars in lines. My glaze, however, was not of such a consistency. I tried letting it cool for extra time in hopes it would thicken. I tried whisking in a little more confectioner’s sugar. And, then, I gave up and just poured the thin glaze all over the top of the uncut bars and placed walnut halves in what would be the centers of each of 24 pieces.

My glaze may not have looked liked that in the photo, but it was delicious. The chewy, bars are an addictive flavor combination of orange, walnut, oats, and a hint of maple while the glaze adds more maple flavor on top. Cut into cute, little squares, these are hard to resist. Now, I’m starting to think those cakes don’t really need to be reserved for special occasions, and even if they do, I should probably test them first anyway, right?

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Cinnamon Raisin Breakfast Ring

Last Saturday, we were invited to a brunch party, and that had me thinking about cinnamon rolls. I’ve made plain cinnamon rolls and pumpkin cinnamon rolls and tried different glazes on top, but I felt it was time to try something completely new and different. I found this breakfast ring in The Modern Baker, and this was just what I wanted to try. Incidentally, while looking through the book, I kept pausing and thinking yes, I have to make that sometime. I’m now sure that I’ll eventually bake every item in it. The blueberry crumb cake was irresistible, and I ended up baking that too. But, first, the breakfast ring. I thought the shape would be pretty, but I was curious if the taste and texture would be much different from my usual cinnamon rolls.

The dough is a quick brioche which is started with warmed milk, yeast, and flour. That mixture is left to bubble and rise for 20 minutes before it’s added to butter, sugar, salt, eggs, egg yolks, and flour in a food processor. There’s a tiny error in the breakfast ring recipe. You are instructed to follow the quick brioche recipe through step six, but you should actually only follow it through step four. That was no problem though; it’s obvious that you’re done at step four. The mixed dough was then chilled for an hour after which it was rolled into a rectangle on a floured surface. The filling included softened butter, light brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins, and chopped pecans, and that was spread over the rectangle of dough. The dough was rolled up jelly-roll style, transferred to a parchment-lined baking sheet, and then formed into a ring. Of course, I worried over the evenness of the circle. Where the ends meet, it forms a smaller cross-section that the rest of the ring, but a little coaxing and sculpting left it looking good enough.

The ring shape was smoothed and slightly flattened down from the top. Using scissors, cuts were made all around from the outside perimeter to about three-quarters of the way toward the center. Each piece was twisted to one side to expose the filling. You have to lift and pull a little to get the cut and turned pieces to sit nicely next to one another. After the twisting and flipping, the finished ring sat until doubled in size. An egg wash was applied, more chopped pecans were sprinkled on top, and it was baked. Once cool, it was dusted with confectioners’ sugar. Happily, it was sturdy enough to be transferred to a clean tray, but I feared that step and took photos prior to moving it.

I couldn’t wait to find out how it compared to the cinnamon rolls I’ve been making for years. Because of the ring shape, I couldn’t exactly have a little sample before presenting it to our hosts. So, I crossed my fingers and off we went. At the brunch, I heard some positive reactions about it from other guests and hoped they weren’t just being kind. Finally, I cut a piece for myself. The first bite informed me that it was good, second bite: yes, I like the raisins and pecans, third bite: ok, this dough is better than what I’ve been using for rolls, then no more thinking and just eating. The ring makes a nice presentation and is no more difficult than cutting rolls, but individual portions would be just as good. It was a definite keeper of a breakfast bread, and this tender brioche dough will be my new standard.

I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.

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