ZALETI - Venetian Cornmeal Biscuits

This is a traditional kind of biscuits from my region, Veneto. Their name sounds slightly different depending on the area and the dialect: Zaeti, Zaleti, Xaeti....
These biscuits are prepared with simple and common ingredients, as the cornmeal (in Italian also called farina gialla) from which they take their name: Gialletti = Zaleti, small yellow things.

Ingredients (for approx. 35 Zaleti)

200 gr cornmeal
100 gr all-purpose flour
160 gr butter
100 gr sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon baking powder
salt, a pinch
50 gr raisins
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
grappa (or rum, if you cannot find it)

Preparation

1. Before starting, prepare raisin and butter. Put the raisin in a cup and cover with grappa. Let it rest for 15 minutes. After this, chop them coarsely (but if you prefer, you can also skip this step). In the meanwhile, take the butter out of the fridge and let it soften.

2. In a large bowl, mix cornmeal and all-purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, a pinch of salt, grated lemon zest. Create a hole in the middle and add the egg, the butter (previously cut into pieces) and the raisins. Knead until the dough is smooth. Make two cylinders.

3. Cover the dough with cling film and chill for at least 30 minutes.

4. In the meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Take out the dough, and cut from the two cylinders slices of about 1 cm thick.

5. Arrange the biscuits on an oven tray covered with parchment paper, leaving some space between the biscuits. Bake for 20 minutes or until the Zaleti are lightly browned around.

6. Let them cool completely and...they are ready to be eaten!