Biscotti & Cookies
Biscotti Amaretti: Perhaps the most famous of all Italian biscotti and a perfect example of how broad the term "biscotti" really is. These light-as-a-feather, single-baked, intensely-almond macaroons are crisp, airy, gluten-free and perfect with creams, custards, gelato, ice cream or fresh fruit. Save the crumbs!: they are regarded as highly as the cookies themselves and make an excellent dessert topping. There is even a famous tortellini recipe that includes amaretti crumbs in the filling.
Romantic legends abound regarding Amaretti origins, but none prepare you for the elegant simplicity of this baked confection. Almost miraculously, they are made using only three ingredients: almonds, sugar, and egg-whites. They remain a timeless milestone in the canon of the Italian baker.
Biscotti Di Camillo: A SOFI Gold Award Winner for “The Best Cracker/Crisp Bread”. This crisp bread reaches into the soul of our bakery and is a further example of the variety of biscotti. It starts its first life as our handmade Scaletta “curly” Italian bread, the cornerstone of our daily production, sold in our retail stores. This bread is reincarnated the day after it was first made, when it is sliced, cut again, covered in melted butter and then pan-baked until completely dry and golden brown. Delicious, comforting and with a neutral flavor that enhances and adds subtle taste and texture to whatever it accompanies. They can be enjoyed alone or with an endless list of partners from savory to sweet. You are never bread-less if you have a container of Biscotti DiCamillo in your bread box!
Biscotti Di Vino: This is our most famous biscotti and the biscotti that launched the entire biscotti renaissance of the 1980s-1990s. This DiCamillo Bakery original creation borrowed on our own Abruzzi tradition and the Sicilian influences of our neighbors. Made with red wine, these slightly sweet, sesame-coated biscotti offer a completely unique taste and are simultaneously both crisp and tender. When they debuted in New York City on the shelves of Bloomingdales, Dean and Deluca, Saks 5th Avenue, and Zabars in the late 1970s they were immediately heralded in The New York Times: "DiCamillo's Biscotti Di Vino is one of the more sophisticated cookies to appear in recent months". Like no other, this biscotti is perfect with wine cocktails, hard cheese, and fresh fruit. It also excels as a tea-time biscuit. A SOFI Award nominee.
Biscotti Sesame: Often referred to as “Biscotti Regina” this classic of the Sicilian baker reveals the Moorish influences that abound in the baking traditions of this island. The use of sesame seeds is often traced to the Sacarcens who ruled Sicily for hundreds of years. We have added butter in place of lard and slightly scented the dough with whole anise seed. Long strings of dough are hand-rolled, then rolled-again in a sesame-seed-and-syrup coating, and finally cut into “fingers”. They are wonderful with liquors and sweet wines as well as all hot beverages.
Cherry Butter Almond Biscotti: These biscotti trace their origins to Naples and the tradition of "Pane di Spagna" or “Spanish bread”. A more tender/less-crisp biscotti, made with pure butter along with an inclusion of almonds and glacé cherries. These biscotti have a similarity to Mandelbrot and are nearly a double-baked butter cookie.
Chocolate Dipped Biscotti Di Prato: Our classic Biscotti di Prato are both floated and decorated in pure dark French chocolate (64% cocoa). This American innovation of a chocolate bath brings this biscotti to new heights and has a uniquely balanced taste.
Double Chocolate Biscotti Di Prato: To the classic almond Biscotti di Prato recipe is added a generous amount of dark cocoa and whole chocolate chips. The Biscotti remain pure of any added fat. These deeply chocolate finger-cookies have a remarkably clean chocolate taste.
Focaccia: Our savory crisp flat-bread crackers are made with olive oil, black pepper and a poppy seed/cornmeal topping. These savory cracker-breads are a Di Camillo family original recipe. We have taken a classic Focaccia-bread, removed almost all of the yeast, creating a thinner, crisper cracker-like bread. Perfect with cheeses, both hard and soft, all toppings and dips.
Lemon Butter Biscotti: These delicate double-baked nut-less biscotti are of Neapolitan origin and in the tradition of toasted "Pane di Spagna" or Spanish Bread. Rich in butter and bursting with real lemon zest, they have a similarity to Mandelbrot and close the gap between biscotti and cookie. Perfect when served with vanilla ice cream.
Pan Crosta Flat Bread: Imagine eating only the crust on the best Italian bread you have ever had. This is what these flat chunks of crisp, firm, baked flat-breads will remind you of. Dimpled lightly with coarse sea-salt they are perfect with hard salami, cheese, or a soft butter dip.
Traditional Biscotti Di Prato: From the ancient city of Prato in Tuscany comes this recipe. These are the biscotti that have defined the term for most Americans, and with which most are familiar. Our Biscotti di Prato are true to the Tuscan original in size and, significantly, made without butter or shortening of any kind. This omission of added fat is a hallmark of these biscotti. They begin as long (two-feet long by three-inch wide) almond-studded loaves and are then sliced and baked again. Emerging from the oven, after this second baking, as crisp finger-cookies embedded with almonds. They are simply one of the most sophisticated biscotti of all, celebrated for their extremely crisp texture and elegant clean taste.
Traditionally they are paired with the Tuscan dessert wine, Vin Santo, but may be equally enjoyed with any sweet wine and all hot beverages, especially espresso.
Triple Chocolate Biscotti Di Prato: These deeply chocolate almond-studded biscotti combine our crisp, lean (no added fats) chocolate Biscotti Di Prato enveloped in pure dark French chocolate (64% cocoa). The result is a near-ideal balance of chocolate-to-biscotti. They were a SOFI Award nominee.
Anise Pizzelles: There is no cookie in our repertoire that speaks more directly to our Abruzzi roots that this classic, pressed-cookie of the Abruzzo. No home baker, from this region, is without their own version of this cookie. Our grandmother's original pizzelle iron hangs proudly in our Lewiston, New York store to this very day: a family icon of our baking history. Our pizzelle are flavored with whole Anise-seed, and are a pressed butter waffle-cookies. They are perfect with gelato and tea, coffee or sweet wine. A special summer treat is the “Pizzelle Ice-Cream Sandwich” made with two-pizzelles encasing soft vanilla custard.
Coconut Macaroons: Moist, sweet, and chewy with a buttery-custard taste. This is one of our most popular cookies. Made in a two-step process, first a custard base is cooked on the stove before being blended with the fresh shredded coconut. For those who dream of the perfect coconut macaroon, dream no more! Our coconut macaroons were a SOFI Award Nominee for Best Cookie.
Crumiri: This Italian regional cookie-classic is nearly gluten-free. A butter-cookie made from cornmeal, it is often called the “polenta-cookie”. Dense with a unique buttery taste and with an equally singular toasted-polenta texture.
Gocce Di Cioccolato: Tender, melt-in-your-mouth butter/chocolate-chip cookies topped with a baked-on sugar icing. This is a cookie for the child in us all-- and perfect with a glass of cold milk!
Pasticcini: Essential to the baker's repertoire is a butter cookie and it is also something of a test of one’s baking skill. Our butter-walnut pasticcini are a Di Camillo original recipe. Nearly a shortbread cookie in taste, but a crisper snap awaits your first bite.
The Di Camillo Family fell in love with butter—something of a scarcity in our native Abruzzi, Italy-- nearly a century ago, shortly after our arrival in North America, and this love has only increased with each generation. Our Pasticcini di Burro does our love-of-butter proud. A perfect tea cookie.
Sweet Abruzzi: This hand-packed sampling of biscotti and cookies contains Anise Pizzelles, Chocolate Biscotti Di Prato®, Crumiri (a corn,meal butter cookie), Biscotti Amaretti, and Biscotti Di Vino.
Neatly arranged in an airtight, clear, container and are an excellent value.