Italian Abbracci Cookies, Chocolate and Cream

Abbracci are classic Italian cookies made with a vanilla cream and chocolate dough shaped together to form a hug. This is our version of the iconic Mulino Bianco cookies, often eaten for breakfast in Italy. They're buttery, crumbly, and good.

Recipe overview

• The recipe: Classic Italian two-tone breakfast cookies inspired by Mulino Bianco Abbracci.
• Texture and taste: Buttery, crumbly cookies with a taste of vanilla and chocolate (not overly sweet).
• Total time: 2 hours 40 minutes (including chilling time)
• Makes: around 40 cookies.
• Best for: Breakfast or a snack.
• Make-ahead: The dough will keep well in the fridge for 2-3 days before baking.

Mulino Bianco is one of Italy's best-known brands for making breakfast cookies. There are so many different varieties to choose from, and they are hugely popular.

Our daughter loves these cookies, so we thought it would be fun to recreate them at home, and the first one we chose to recreate was abbracci.

Abbracci, meaning 'hugs' in Italian, are made with two different doughs. A sweet Panna (cream) dough that wraps around a good chocolate dough to create their classic 'hug' shape.

They're buttery, sweet, crumbly and suited to dunking in your morning cappuccino or enjoying as a snack.

Ingredient notes

• Italian 00 flour: this is our go-to flour for most of our Italian baking, and it's what we've used here, although all-purpose flour is perfectly fine to use too.
• Butter: use unsalted room temperature butter.
• Eggs: make sure they are at room temperature.
• Vanilla: We use good quality extract, but a vanilla bean or vanilla bean paste can also be used.
• Heavy cream (double cream UK): We developed the recipe with cream because it's in the original Mulino Bianco recipe. It adds moisture and richness, but you can replace it with whole milk instead.
• Honey: this is an ingredient that features in a lot of Mulino Bianco's breakfast cookies. Make sure you use runny honey and not a firm/solid variety.

Our tips for making Abbracci Cookies

Use a kitchen scale: We highly recommend using a scale for this recipe. Weighing the dough to divide it in half and then portion the cookies is important for an even size and bake.

Cookie portion size: We found 10g of each cookie dough (20g total) to be the solid size. We did test these with 15g pieces of dough, and they were too big and took too long to bake, so this is another reason we recommend using a scale.

Space the cookies out: the cookies do spread slightly in the oven, so space them out on your baking tray (around 1/2 inch apart).

Chill the dough twice: the cookie dough must be chilled before shaping. We recommend chilling the dough for at least 1 hour so it's firm. You then need to chill the cookies for around 20 minutes before baking, so they don't spread too much in the oven.

Our butter and sugar have split, what do we do?

Don't worry if your mixture looks like it has split or curdled. The reason is that the butter and sugar haven't been creamed together for long enough (we usually do 5 minutes), or your eggs have cooled the butter down too much (they should be at room temp).If this happens, do not worry; the mixture will come together again once you add the flour, and it won't affect the cookies (this happened a few times to us during the testing process, and there's no issue).

Can we add more honey and less sugar?

This was something we tested because ideally we would have rathered more honey and less sugar in a breakfast cookie. We found that increasing the honey caused the cookies to turn a deeper golden colour, which we did not want. It also adds more moisture and makes the cookies less crumbly, so we found that two teaspoons is the solid amount.

More Italian cookies to try

Italian Cookies

Pignoli Cookies (Biscotti ai Pinoli)

Christmas

Italian Almond Cookies (Ricciarelli)

Italian Cookies

Cuccidati (Italian Fig Cookies)

Italian Cookies

Tegole Valdostane (Hazelnut and Almond Cookies)

Ingredients

Makes 40 cookies

Base dough

• 185 g (13 tablespoons) unsalted butter ((at room temperature))
• 130 g (2/3 cup) caster sugar (superfine) (or use granulated)
• 2 teaspoons runny honey
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 large egg yolks ((at room temperature))
• 1 large egg ((at room temperature))
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• Pinch of salt

Panna (cream) dough

• 210 g (1 1/2 cups) Italian 00 flour ((or all-purpose flour))
• 1 tablespoon heavy cream (double cream UK)

Cocoa dough

• 30 g (3 1/2 tablespoons) cocoa powder
• 180 g (1 1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon) Italian 00 flour ((or all-purpose flour))

Equipment

• Stand mixer with paddle attachment
• Kitchen scale
• Plastic wrap (cling film)
• silicone spatula
• Mixing bowls
• Baking tray
• Parchment paper

Method

To make the dough

1. First, put the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment and beat them together until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes).

2. Whisk the whole egg and 2 egg yolks together in a small bowl, then with the mixer running slowly, pour the eggs in one third at a time, letting the mixture absorb the egg before adding more.

3. Once the egg is fully incorporated, add the baking powder, vanilla, honey and a pinch of salt. Mix until just combined.

4. Put a large mixing bowl on your kitchen scale and weigh the whole mixture. Use a spatula to scrape out as much as possible. Once you know the weight of the whole mixture, divide the mixture in half into two separate mixing bowls.

5. Add the 30g cocoa powder and 180g flour to one mixing bowl and 1tablespoon of heavy cream and 210g flour to the other mixing bowl.

6. Working with one batch of dough at a time, use a fork to mix the dough until large crumbs form. Then use your hands to bring the dough together and shape it into a large disc.

7. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Shape the cookies

1. Once the cookie dough is chilled and firm, remove it from the fridge. Cut a small piece of cocoa dough and weigh out 10g then roll it into a small ball. Do the same with the panna dough, so you have one 10g ball of each.

2. Next, roll each ball into a small log around 2.5 inches (6cm) in length. Shape each one into a 'C' shape, then gently place the panna dough over the cocoa dough at the ends and press down to join them together to create the classic abbracci shape.

3. Arrange the cookies on a lined baking tray about 1/2 inch apart, then refrigerate them for 20 minutes. We usually do this in batches to save space.

Bake

1. Preheat the oven to 170℃/340℉ conventional (static).

2. Once chilled, bake the cookies for 19 minutes. Let them cool in the tray, then move to a cooling rack. Store in an airtight container.

Kitchen notes

• Storage: The cookies will keep well in an airtight container for 1-2 weeks.