Mangia pizzelles

By PAUL GIANNAMORE, Business edito
WINTERSVILLE — Just about every Italian family has a pizzelle recipe around the Tri-State Area, and just about every recipe is slightly different from every other one.

The pizzelle is a tradition, with recipes handed down from generation to generation, across the continents, the years and the kitchens.

The Dolce Pizzelles Cookie Co., a Jefferson County home-based business, seeks to take the pizzelle to a new level and to a wider audience.

The homemade goodness of the cookies made by Debra Latynski and her sister Linda Freed start with their mother Jenny Monfred.

“My sister and I were no exception,” Freed said. “We would stand at our mother’s side, watching and studying her craftsmanship. And she learned from her family. Every Italian family has a recipe, and everybody’s is unique.”

What the sisters have done is take the pizzelle to a different place.

Linda and Debra call their Dolce Pizzelles Cookie Co. cookies an Old World tradition with a New World twist, “baked with love, one dozen at a time.”

The Dolce Pizzelles Cookie Co.’s handmade pizzelles start out flat, like other pizzelles, but are folded around a creamy chocolate/hazelnut or a peanut butter-based filling, then sealed by hand-dipping the edge into ambrosia chocolate and topped with candy sprinkles or nuts or other decorations that fit the occasion.

They’re then packed and ready for shipment in decorative tins.

“We’re not giving you the recipe,” joked Freed.

They have been making the cookies for years and decided to go into business for extra income — both women have husbands who work in local industry, Freed’s in steel and Latynski’s at Ohio Edison. Linda had operated Linda’s Cookies for 15 years, and they sold their Dolce Pizzelles at the Treasure Island Marketplace in Wintersville for a time. Seeing success there, they embarked on their Internet sales venture.

“You’ve got to think outside the box,” Freed said. “There’s not always going to be a mill.”

“Italian food is ingrained in who we are,” said Latynski. “Sweets is part of the basic food groups with our mom.”

And, though many Italian families would guard the traditional pizzelles with their lives, Monfred says it’s an honor to see her cookies on sale.

“I’m tickled that they decided to do something like that,” she said. “They were always in the kitchen with me, and they’re good cooks today.”

The sisters make the cookies to fill orders from their homes, Latynski in Hammondsville and Freed in Wintersville, and their “store” is an Internet Web site, www.dolcepizzelles.com. They note their homes are pet-free and smoke-free and meet Ohio Department of Agriculture regulations for home-based cottage food production operations.

They’re aware of the history of the pizzelle, and are quick to note that Steubenville is not just their hometown but also the hometown of the inventor of the electric pizzelle iron, Charles DeMarco.

The electric iron proved to be a huge labor saver for pizzelle chefs, who went from having to stand at the stove cooking one pizzelle at a time with a long-handled, heavy iron to being able to make two or more at a time while sitting at a table with a waffle-iron-sized electric device.

And they’re proud to be part of the Ohio Proud program, earning the state’s recognition of Dolce Pizzelles Co. products as locally made while creating opportunities for the business.

Through Ohio Proud, they’ve been to a number of trade shows for tourism and agricultural products, including the Cinco de Ohio event at North Market in Columbus, and an event at the IX Center in Cleveland where they met Giada De Laurentiis, hostess of “Everyday Italian” on the Food Network.

They were chosen as a nominee in the 2008 Gallo Family Vineyards Gold Medal Awards Contest, which honors high-caliber artisan food producers in a variety of categories.

Dolce products are locally available at the Valley Wine Cellar on Main Street in Wintersville and at Heini’s Gourmet Market in Sugarcreek.

Their turnaround time on Internet orders is to have the order baked within 48 hours, with free shipping in the continental United States.

“We can do 30 dozen in one day if we have to,” Freed said.

She said Dolce Pizzelles are finding a new audience among people from beyond the Italian-American families around the area.

Freed said one letter writer said her colleagues were amazed by the cookies.

“She told them that we were Italian and some of them had never heard of the pizzelle,” Freed said.



(Giannamore can be contacted at pgiannamore@heraldstaronline.com.)