Tu Tu Cookies Recipe (Chococlate Spice Drops from Sicily)

 ABOVE: Photo from Lori's Lipsmacking Goodness

My Ama-- my Sicilian grandmother--regularly baked two kinds of biscotti, or cookies: 

1. SOS cookies (or Biscotti di Monreale---click for recipe), butter cookies flavored with almond, vanilla, and cinnamon, and shaped into S's and O's; 
2. and these tu tus, chocolate cookies flavored with coffee and cinnamon. 

Another family recipe for Sicilian cookies:
My Father's Biscotti

I used to think she had made these cookies up, but when I went to Monreale, Sicily, where she was born, there were SOS-shaped cookies in the bakery windows, labeled as biscotti di Monreale, a local specialty.

I found a reference to "tay tu" or tetú cookies on the Web, defined as spicy, iced chocolate cookies rich with clove, cinnamon and nuts. These seem to be a relative of my Ama's tu tus. 
Southern Sicily is closer to North Africa than it is to the European mainland, and Arab influence--spice blends, for instance--is strong in Sicilian cooking.

Last night at L &M's Christmas party, the tu tus were a hit. Here is the recipe:

TU TU COOKIES (Cousin Celia's recipe)

Ingredients for cookie dough:

2 sticks butter
¾ cup white sugar
½ c brown sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla 
¼ c strong brewed coffee
4–4½  c flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp cinnamon
½ c cocoa
½ c chopped nuts (optional)

1. Cream butter and sugars.

2. Mix in the eggs, the vanilla, and the coffee.

3. Combine 1 cup of the flour with the b. powder, b. soda, salt, cinnamon, and cocoa. 
Stir into the butter-sugar-egg-coffee mixture.

4. Add the rest of the flour slowly, stirring after each addition, until you have a tacky dough. Usually about 3 to 3-½ cups total is about right.
If you're using nuts, add them. (My grandmother used walnuts in America. Maybe pistachios would be good?)

5. Make dough into walnut-sized rounds with your hands, and place on cookie sheets. 
Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. 
Do not overbake, or they will be dry.

6. Frost with chocolate frosting--below.

CHOCOLATE FROSTING

ingredients for frosting:
2 ½ cups powdered sugar
½ cup cocoa 
½ tsp vanilla
brewed coffee  

1. Combine 2 ½ cups powdered sugar and ½ cup cocoa.

2. Add ½ tsp vanilla, and stir in enough brewed coffee and/or hot water to get the frosting consistency you like. Less liquid makes a fudgier frosting like we made; more liquid makes a thinner glaze.

Recipe makes about 4-5 sheets of cookies. Eat and enjoy!