Elio’s Italian Peach Cookies
By Maria DiGiovanni
As Timothée Chalamet first rose in relevance in 2017, a friend urged me to watch Call Me By Your Name. Watch it, I did—and it broke me. For the ensuing two weeks, thoughts of Elio, Oliver, and their impossible love consumed my mind. I still cannot put into words just what was so moving about the story, but I have not been the same since. Much of the enchantment arises from the romance’s idyllicism: somewhere in Northern Italy, Elio and Oliver fall in love amid swims at dawn, ice creams on the piazza, poolside conversations, and dinner drudgeries. In both the film and novel, this idyllicism is often communicated through the motif of fruit. Lush fruit trees fill the sun-washed gardens of the Perlman’s villa, creating a scenery of radiant sublimity. More notably, fruit expresses Elio’s growing attraction to Oliver. As Elio observes Oliver pick apricots off a tree, the nature of his desire resembles that of the fruit—sweet, enticing, and in bloom. And, of course, there is that infamous “peach scene.” Throughout that 1983 summer, the love Elio feels for Oliver ripens like the fruit trees, tempting and plentiful, that bask in the heat of the Italian sun.
To honor Call Me By Your Name and the motif of fruit, I present a recipe for Italian peach cookies. A light-hearted take on a heart-wrenching love story, this recipe features jam pressed between two cookie halves, rolled in sugar and garnished with a mint leaf. Perfect for snacking, holidays, or perhaps a Call Me By Your Name book club, you can swap the jam for cream filling or choose between fruit juices and liqueurs for decoration. While baking these cookies, I additionally recommend listening to the movie’s soundtrack—just try not to cry when “Visions of Gideon” plays. By emulating a ripe Italian peach, it is my hope that the dessert arouses the senses of not only Elio, but anyone who enjoys it.
Ingredients:
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1 cup whole milk
6 cups all-purpose flour
Decoration:
Peach liqueur, syrup, or juice, other fruit juice, or water for dipping
Red and yellow food coloring
Granulated sugar
Mint leaves
Filling:
Apricot jam, peach jam, or pastry cream
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350° F (176° C) and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Place eggs and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat until light and frothy.
Add the oil and beat until creamy, then mix in the milk and vanilla extract.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to the wet ingredients and beat until just combined.
Roll batter into 1½-inch balls and place on baking sheets.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, until bottoms are lightly browned. Make sure the tops don’t crack!
Let cool before the next step.
Using a sharp knife, cut out a circle on the flat side of the cookie to create a space for the filling. Do not cut completely through the cookie.
Break up the centers removed from the cookie and combine with the jam to form a sticky filling.
Scoop the filling into the cookie and press together two cookies of similar sizes, with the flat sides facing each other. The filling should allow them to hold. Clean off any excess filling that oozes from the seams.
In two separate bowls, pour the dipping liquid of choice, and color one yellow and one red.
Fill another bowl with granulated sugar for rolling the cookies.
Dip one part of the cookies in the red liquid, then dip the other part in the yellow liquid.
Lightly blot the cookies and roll in the sugar.
Let dry on a sheet of wax paper, and garnish each cookie by placing a mint leaf in the seam.