Italian amaretti cookies
Servings: 20 cookies
Ingredients
- 70 g egg whites from 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 250 g almond flour
- 180 g powdered sugar I used superfine caster sugar
- lemon zest about 3/4 of a medium lemon
- pinch of salt
- powdered sugar or fine caster sugar for rolling the cookies prior to baking
- 20-25 whole raw almonds to top each cookie or flaked almonds, around 100 g
- 20 amarena cherries alternative topping option
Instructions
- Beat the egg whites to semi-stiff peaks.
- Rub lemon zest into the sugar until it resembles wet sand. Sugar should not be too coarse for this recipe because it will not resolve in the batter and the cookies will have a crunchy bite.
- Mix together flour, salt, lemon-sugar and almond extract.
- Take half of the egg whites and mix into the dry ingredients. They will deflate, but will help fold in the rest of the egg whites more gently.
- Fold in the remaining half of the egg whites.
- Cover and transfer the mixture in the freezer for 10 minutes, or in the fridge for up to 1 day.
- Preheat oven to 170℃ fan assisted.
- Form 30-40 g balls, according to preference and roll in powdered sugar, or regular sugar. Then, create an indent with your thumb, flatten the cookie a bit and place a whole almond in the indent. I placed two almonds in the larger (40g) cookies.
- Alternatively, you can roll the cookies in egg white (or milk or water?) followed by flaked almonds. I didn't use any liquid, and instead stabbed the almond flakes into the dough to get them to stay. It worked out fine.
- Line an over tray with parchment paper and arrange the cookies. No need to leave large gaps, as they don;t expand during baking.
- Bake for 15-18 minutes, according to size until they are just slightly golden. Rotate the oven tray half way.
- Let cool and store in airtight container at room temp for 2-3 days. Then move to the fridge.
- Results in a dense cookie with a wonderful almond-lemon aroma.
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