Rame di Napoli

Rame di Napoli are soft, chocolate-covered cookies hailing from the Sicilian city of Catania. They are typically made with a combination of sugar, milk, flour, crumbled biscuits or cookies, eggs, cocoa powder, butter, baking powder, honey, orange marmalade, cinnamon, cloves, and orange rind.

Once baked, the cookies are covered with a mixture of melted dark chocolate and butter before being garnished with pistachios or other nuts such as hazelnuts. Different variations of these sweet biscuits call for using Nutella, pistachio cream, other fruit marmalades, or even stewed fruits and vegetables instead of the traditional orange marmalade.

The name of these cookies means copper of Naples, and it is believed to derive from their intended resemblance to copper coins that used to be forged during the Bourbon Empire. In Catania, these delicious biscuits are traditionally enjoyed during All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day (Festa dei morti), and there are ready-made versions of the cookies available in almost all pastry shops during this time of the year.