Neither too sweet nor too cake-like, these cookies of my mom’s creation are addictive--friends have even suggested that I’ve doped them. In my hometown, cookies of this type went by various names: Italian Meatball Cookies, Italian Sinker Ball Cookies, Italian Chocolate Cookies, and, among my family, Brown Balls. My mom's original recipe was double what is shown below. My family had a long-standing joke that you should never cut the recipe, and I played up the farce for many years before then cutting the recipe in half. However, I must say that I have had better luck making a full recipe (twice shown here), so maybe my mother was right about not cutting it. The recipe shown here makes 65 to 70 cookies (my mother originally said 144 for a double recipe).
These originated in Palermo, Sicily where they are called Tetù cookies. They are traditional sweets that are mainly prepared during the Christmas holidays, even as early as All Saint's Day (November 1) or the Day of the Dead (November 2), along with their white cookie counterparts called Teio cookies. The dialectical phrase "tetù e teio" means "you hold and I hold." Their origin dates back to the period of the Arab invasion in Sicily, between 827 and 1091 A.D., when the Arabs introduced new cultivation techniques and new ingredients, including various types of spices that are still present in Tetù cookies today.
Wet Ingredients
1/2 lb (227 g) Crisco vegetable shortening
1/2 qt (1 pint, 484 g) whole milk
Dry Ingredients
2 lb (907 g) unbleached all-purpose flour (if you buy a 2-pound bag, you can avoid weighing it)
1 1/2 cups (308 g) sugar
1/2 cup (43 g) Hershey’s cocoa powder (or maybe slightly more)
6 oz (169 g) Nestlé’s semisweet morsels (not the mini)
3/4 cup walnuts (95 g), coarsely chopped (original recipe: 1/2 cup, we prefer more and coarser)
1/2 cup raisins (73 g), though we sometimes omit these
0.92 tsp (2.4 g) ground cinnamon (original recipe: 1/2 heaping tsp)
1.00 tsp (2.2 g) ground clove (original recipe: 1/2 heaping tsp)
0.76 tsp (1.45 g) freshly hand-grated nutmeg (original recipe: 1/2 heaping tsp)
1.5 tsp (7.2 g) baking soda
Icing
2 lb (907 g) confectioner’s sugar
7/8 cup (237 mL/g) lukewarm water (I had changed this to 1 cup, but now think the original amount is right)
1. Melt Crisco and milk over medium heat. DO NOT STIR. DO NOT WALK AWAY FROM IT. Turn off the heat and let sit for 2 hours (3 hours if you double the recipe), OR until the temperature gets below 110F. You can speed up the process in the refrigerator, but you'll want to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't cool down too far. A Bluetooth thermometer is useful here, if you have one (tie it to a string).
2. Meanwhile, combine all the dry ingredients in a large pot. Mix thoroughly with your hands, making sure to fold in everything stuck at the bottom.
3. Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C). Alternatively, you can try 350°F (177°C) and cook for an extra minute, which will produce moister cookies for the first 24 hours, but if you defrost them and transport them, they might get mushy that way.
4. Pour the wet mixture from step 1 into the dry mixture. Mix thoroughly with your hands. Make sure all of the dry ingredients are folded into the cookie dough, including the stuff at the bottom of the pot.
5. Shape pieces of dough into 1 5/8-inch balls. DO NOT ROLL. Instead, push them into a round shape. You do not want smooth cookies but rough ones, with lots of bumps and cracks to catch the icing.
6. Space cookies 3 inches apart (center to center) on ungreased (preferably insulated) cookie sheet. I have a large sheet that can fit 5 rows of 6.
7. Bake one sheet at a time in the center of the oven for 15 minutes (16 minutes if you used 350°F). The cookies should NOT be completely dry when you take them out. With my oven, 15 minutes is about right. If they are slightly soft, that is fine. If they are very soft, like would break if you picked them up, then give them another minute. Note that, as they cool, they will get less soft.
8. Let the cookies cool for a couple of minutes on their sheet, then transfer them to a large work surface covered with aluminum foil. You can bang the sheet a little before letting them slide off.
9. Prepare the icing by whisking the lukewarm water into the confectioner’s sugar. Measure water carefully.
10. Once the cookies cool enough to be handled, dunk them into the icing top down, coating up to the base of the cookie. Shake off excess icing and place them right side up on the aluminum foil. If you don't shake off some of the excess, you run the risk of running out.
11. Repeat steps 5-9 for remaining cookie dough. If you are making a double batch, having two ovens going at once will speed it up.
12. Wait 1 hour, then loosely cover cookies with aluminum foil. Let them dry for 8 to 12 hours. Though you might be tempted to eat the cookies sooner, their flavor improves dramatically during this drying period.
13. Store your week’s fix at room temperature and freeze the remaining in ziplock bags (don't pack too tightly). If you cooked them at the lower temperature, you might find that they get mushy when you defrost them.
The following photos are for a double batch (my mother's original amount):
