Amaretti are a wonderful Italian cookie or biscuit. Almond in flavour with a crunch on the outside and a soft, chewy, centre.
I looked at several recipes and they came in various guises, but all were fairly straightforward to make. I opted for a recipe on the BBC Food website, though with a couple of amendments. The main one was to the length of cooking time, and the heat of the oven. Since I prefer to cook with the fan on I reduced the temperature, but I wasn’t confident that the biscuits were cooked enough, so I extended the cooking time.
For the recipe below I have adjusted the cooking time to match what I baked mine for. It will make about 20 biscuits( I made 21).
The result was very pleasing indeed. The wonderful flavour of almond, with a nice crunch on the outside and then the chewy centre. These biscuits are very moreish, so be prepared to make a second batch as I am sure you will quickly eat a single batch.
I am off on holiday to Canada shortly, so this will be my last post for just over 3 weeks. While in Canada I will be doing some baking with some of the family there and will film it to edit and post once I get home. So I will be back with more then.
Amaretti – Video
Ingredients:
- 340g ground almonds
- 340g caster sugar
- 4 medium egg whites(in USA this would be large)
- 30ml of amaretto licqeur(you could use 5-10ml of almond extract instead)
- Preserving, or pearl, sugar for sprinkling(optional)
Method:
- Pre-heat the oven to 170C/150C Fan/325 F
- Line a couple of baking trays with parchment paper.
- Whisk the egg whites until they are quite stiff.
- Gently pour in the sugar and ground almonds and gently mix in until combined.
- Add the amaretto and, again, gently mix in.
- Take a heaped teaspoon, or a decent dessertspoon of mixture and roll into a ball and place on the baking sheet, leaving a couple of centimetres between each ball.
- Sprinkle the preserving sugar over the top if you wish.
- Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until the biscuits are slightly browned and they have started to crack.
- Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire cooling rack and allow to cook before serving.