Mostaccioli (Neapolitan Christmas Biscuits)

Name: Mostaccioli (Neapolitan Christmas Biscuits)
Total time: 1 h
Yield: 60 servings
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 1000 g plain flour; 2 tsp baking powder; 600 g caster sugar; 15 g mixed spice; 300 g ground almonds; 50 g cocoa powder; 200 ml runny honey; 200 g apricot jam; 180 ml sweet wine (Marsala or Vin Santo); 180 ml water; 1200 g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)

Traditional Neapolitan diamond biscuits (here cut into stars), flavoured with citrusy mixed spice and cocoa, chilled then baked and finished with a dark chocolate dip.

60 min 279 kcal/serving serves 60

279kcal5gprotein40gcarbs11gfat

Gennaro ContaldoView the original on gennarocontaldo.com More from Gennaro Contaldo on Mello

🌾plain flour

🧁baking powder

🍬caster sugar

🫙mixed spice

🥜ground almonds

🍫cocoa powder

🍯runny honey

🍑apricot jam

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About Gennaro Contaldo

Italian chef and cookbook author, the Amalfi Coast mentor behind traditional Neapolitan home cooking

Gennaro Contaldo is an Italian chef, author, and television personality from Minori on the Amalfi Coast, best known in Britain as the mentor who trained a young Jamie Oliver. He has written numerous cookbooks on regional Italian cooking and co-founded restaurants in London, building a reputation for championing simple, traditional Italian food made with good ingredients.

His cooking stays close to Italian and especially Neapolitan and Amalfi Coast tradition, built around fresh pasta, seasonal vegetables, olive oil, and foraged ingredients like wild mushrooms and herbs. He favours a small number of well-chosen ingredients treated with care over elaborate technique, and often demonstrates hands-on methods such as rolling pasta by hand or making simple sauces from scratch. His recipes tend to be rustic and forgiving rather than precise restaurant plates, reflecting a home and family cooking background.

Two Italian recipes on Mello, imported from gennarocontaldo.com.