{"id":211,"date":"2016-12-21T09:00:33","date_gmt":"2016-12-21T16:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/?post_type=recipe&p=211"},"modified":"2026-09-02T10:59:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T17:59:23","slug":"totos-recipe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/2016\/12\/21\/totos-recipe\/","title":{"rendered":"Totos (Italian Chocolate Spice Cookies)"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 21, 2016<\/span><\/p>\n

Homemade cookies and pastries were\u00a0staples of my childhood.\u00a0 Trays of cookies showed up for holidays, celebrations, weddings, funerals, and, sometimes, for no apparent reason.<\/p>\n

My mother along with relatives and friends set up a cookie-making operation that went on every night for weeks leading up to my sister\u2019s wedding.\u00a0 The overseer was Annie Castagnola, a family friend.\u00a0 She had a thin spiral-bound 3-inch-by-5-inch notebook of cookie recipes.\u00a0 The notebook was the kind we used in grade school to write down our homework assignments.\u00a0 Annie\u2019s recipes were a curated collection gathered from a host of \u201cold Italian women,\u201d my grandmother included.<\/p>\n

The little notebook was coveted by more than a few cooks.\u00a0 Annie, however, did not share her recipes, even when those recipes came from relatives of the very people who were asking for them.\u00a0 I know, my mother was one of those people who wanted some of her<\/em> mother\u2019s recipes.\u00a0 Annie wouldn\u2019t budge.\u00a0 The situation got resolved, however, during the cookie-baking marathon for my sister\u2019s wedding.\u00a0 One night, Annie left her little notebook at our house overnight.\u00a0 Nobody’s confessing, but there are a few cookie recipes in my mother\u2019s recipe box (sitting on my bookcase) written in my twelve-year-old hand.<\/p>\n

Annie died a while back.\u00a0 Her little notebook is most likely gone forever and along with it the baking secrets of a whole\u00a0group of \u201cold Italian women.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of all the cookies that showed up throughout the year, my favorites were the various kinds of cakey cookies, my mom\u2019s Genets, Aunt Margie\u2019s aptly named \u201cColored Cookies,\u201d and my cousin Angie Catanese\u2019s\u00a0Sesame Seed Cookies, to name a few.\u00a0 These cakey\u00a0cookies, which were not very sweet by American standards, were usually little balls but not always.\u00a0 Genets are lemon flavored knots.\u00a0 Colored Cookies are vanilla flavored balls, each made with four or five pinches of dough of different colors rolled together.\u00a0 Sesame cookies are little logs, perfect for dunking into some Vin Santo.\u00a0 For me, though, the best of these cakey cookies are Totos, little chocolate spice balls.

<\/div>
\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/div>\n <\/div>\n
\n
\n \n <\/div>\n

Totos (Italian Chocolate Spice Cookies)<\/h2>\n
<\/div>\n \n
<\/div>\n
These little chocolate balls are intended to have a good kick from an array of spices. Lard is the traditional shortening to use. I render my own. If you need these to be vegetarian, or you just don't want to use lard, you can use solid vegetable shortening. Heck, you can even use clarified butter but that is way off the traditional scale!<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n Print Recipe<\/a>\n Pin Recipe<\/a>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n
Prep Time <\/span>45 minutes<\/span><\/span> mins<\/span><\/span><\/div>
Cook Time <\/span>2 hours<\/span><\/span> hrs<\/span><\/span><\/div>
Total Time <\/span>2 hours<\/span><\/span> hrs<\/span> 45 minutes<\/span><\/span> mins<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Servings: <\/span>8<\/span> dozen cookies<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/g>\n\n\n\n<\/clipPath>\n<\/defs>\n<\/svg>\n<\/span> Ingredients<\/a>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/g>\n\n\n\n<\/clipPath>\n<\/defs>\n<\/svg>\n<\/span> Method<\/a>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span> Notes<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
\n

Ingredients
<\/div>