Bauletti Albicocca – Italian Apricot Jam Shortbread Cookies

Golden parcels of shortcrust pastry, hand-filled with apricot jam and finished with powdered sugar — the most Italian cookie there is, and the one that tastes most like a Tuscan kitchen in summer.

Bristot bakes them in San Gimignano, where pastry has been made by hand since 1957. The dough is simple — butter, eggs, sugar, a pinch of salt — and it is the hand-working that gives it the short, sandy crumb that melts rather than snaps. Fresh jam goes in by hand before baking.

Apricot is the classic: sweet, faintly tart, never cloying. Dip them in coffee at breakfast, serve them at four o'clock with tea, or eat them straight from the tray, standing up, the way they are really eaten.

At a glance

• Type: Jam-filled shortbread cookies (pasta frolla)
• Filling: Apricot jam
• Finish: Dusted with powdered sugar
• Method: Dough worked and hand-filled with fresh jam
• Bakery: Bristot, San Gimignano, Tuscany · since 1957
• Format: 200 g tray (7.05 oz)