Italian Wine Einkorn Cookies-Ciambelline al Vino Rosso | #einkornexperiment

If you have an Italian specialty store near you, you may be able to sometimes find bags of these very addictive Italian Red Wine Cookies. The ones I have found even while in Italy are thinner than what I make. There really isn’t a need to buy them when they are so easy to make! What you need to do is enjoy a glass of wine with them while they are done. If prefer to skip the wine, enjoy them with a friend and a hot cup of coffee and catch up on what is happening in your lives.They are perfect not just for an afternoon break, they are even lovely at breakfast (the wine flavor is so subtle)or after dinner.  I have seen them in Tuscany and in Rome (Lazio). There are Roman recipes that have fennel seeds. I did have fennel seeds on hand, but decided to not use them and focus more on the wine flavor.  The dough comes together very quickly and for this batch of wine cookies I used einkorn flour and brown rice flour. You have to let the dough rest for about 20 minutes and the consistency of the dough is a bit softer than a pasta frolla dough. It is very easy to form the ring shapes. Take out small sections of the dough a little bit of the time and roll them into cylinders about 5 inches long. Roll each cylinder in sugar and then shape into a ring. They really are that simple to make!!! Did I also tell you that these amazing cookies are vegan!?! There are no eggs and there is no dairy at all in the recipe.

some notes on this recipe: I used 1/2 cup of Chianti, feel free to use whatever sort of red wine you prefer. If you’re afraid of the color from the wine, you could stick with white wine. I loved the rich lavender hue the wine gave the dough. The color changes while it bakes and also since I used brown rice flour with the einkorn flour, my dough was a bit more on the brown side when it finished baking. If you don’t have brown rice flour, you could use whole wheat.   I did not use olive oil and chose to use vegetable oil. If you want to be more traditional, use a nice extra-virgin olive oil. As for the flavor, my husband said he could taste the distinctive red wine taste as soon as he took a bite. My father-in-law said he couldn’t even taste the wine. I could taste a very subtle red wine flavor. I suppose everyone will have their own opinion on the wine flavor and if they like it or not. It’s not something I shared with the kids, even though some of the alcohol probably evaporates in baking, it’s just not something I know they would be into. It’s more of an adult cookie and you should make a batch and enjoy it with your friends and a nice bottle of Chianti!