Pabassini

Instructions

1. Line two oven trays with baking paper and set aside.
2. In a medium sized bowl, add the raisins and cover them with tepid water and allow to soak for 30 minutes. Strain the raisins in a medium sized colander and pat them down with kitchen paper towel or a tea towel until dry.
3. Place the dried raisins into a medium sized bowl and start to gradually add 15 grams of flour using a tablespoon to mix the raisins with the flour. Stop adding the flour as soon as it coats all the raisins well. If there is excess flour on the raisins, tip them into a medium sized colander, sifting over a bowl until there is no more extra flour.
4. Preheat your oven to 180C.
5. Tip the remaining 500 grams of flour in a bowl or onto a clean counter and make a large well in the middle. Carefully add the butter, eggs and baking powder and using a fork, slowly combine the ingredients together in a clockwise motion, scraping from the centre of the well to the edges of the flour. If the wet mixture begins to break through the flour walls, use a dough scraper to return the wet ingredients to the middle and continue using a fork to combine the ingredients. Once the wet and dry ingredients become slightly shaggy but incorporated, add the sugar – continue using the fork to mix the sugar into the flour.
6. Next add the salt, lemon zest and a little bit of milk at a time and continue mixing everything together using your fork until you’ve poured all the milk in. At this point, your dough will still be floury but close to forming.
7. Use your dough scraper to shape the dough into a mound then form another well in the centre. Add the raisins dusted in flour, ground aniseeds, ground cloves, ground cinnamon and half the walnuts. Fold the dough into its centre and work for two to three minutes to incorporate all the ingredients.
8. Once your dough forms, create another well in the centre and add in the remaining walnuts. Fold the dough and lightly knead it together to bind the walnuts (around two to three minutes).
9. Lightly flour your counter, place the dough on top and cut into quarters. Take one quarter of the dough and using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out to a height of 1 centimetre.
10. Use your 5-inch diamond cookie cutter to cut the pabassini and place them two to three centimetres apart on the lined baking trays. If you don’t have a cookie cutter you can use a knife to hand cut the diamond shape, measuring 2.5 centimetres across each of the diamond’s four edges. Repeat with the remaining three quarters of the dough. (You can set any biscuits that won’t fit on the baking trays aside on a lightly floured counter.)
11. Place the first tray with the biscuits in the upper third rack of the oven and bake until they turn golden on top, around 15 minutes. As each oven is different check regularly from the 12-minute mark. Repeat with the remaining biscuits.
12. After baking, allow the biscuits to cool for 5 minutes on the oven tray then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
13. While the biscuits cool, in a deep, flat bowl add the icing sugar, followed by a little of the room temperature water at a time stirring with a fork until the texture of the icing becomes creamy and slightly thick (it should drip a little).
14. To decorate the pabassini, add half a teaspoon of the icing onto the centre of each biscuit and spread to the edges using the back of a teaspoon. After icing each biscuit, quickly sprinkle the middle of each one with 100s and 1000s and let it set.
15. Leave the pabassini to dry overnight, then place them in an airtight container, adding baking paper between each layer of biscuits. They will keep for up to one month.

• The Italian leavening agent Paneangeli (known by the brand name Lievito Pane Degli Angeli) can be purchased easily online or at Italian supermarkets.
• Different regions have variations of this biscuit using different spices, nuts and ingredients like wine must or candied oranges. The walnuts can be substituted for pine nuts or almonds.