I first tasted these delicious little currant-studded cornmeal cookies in a great little bakery in Woodstock, Vermont named Pane e Salute (Italian for “Bread and Health”). The owner and baker, Caleb Barber, was producing authentic artisanal breads, cookies, and cakes using recipes and techniques he had learned as a baker’s apprentice in Italy.

Sipping a cappuccino one morning in Caleb’s kitchen, I was able to watch him kneading his zaletti dough. A few days later, I was back at home, trying out a recipe I had found in Carol Field’s book, The Italian Baker. I had to make some changes to get the dough moist enough to look like Caleb’s. Here’s my recipe for these simple yet sophisticated little cookies from Venice.