Amaretti di Saronno

Crisp almond macaroons with a bitter note, dried before baking so the tops craze.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg.

Ingredients

• 200 g ground almonds
• 30 g ground apricot kernels, or 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 200 g caster sugar
• 2 egg whites
• 1 tablespoon icing sugar, for dusting

Method

1. Mix the ground almonds, apricot kernels and caster sugar.
2. THE BITTER NOTE IS THE POINT and it comes from apricot kernels, not from more almonds. Without it these are sweet almond biscuits and perfectly nice; with it they taste of what they are meant to taste of. Almond extract does the same job if kernels are hard to find.
3. Whisk the egg whites to firm peaks and fold them into the dry mixture in three goes. It will deflate to a thick paste and that is correct — this is not a meringue.
4. Roll walnut-sized balls, sit them well apart on a lined tray and dust them with icing sugar.
5. Leave them uncovered at room temperature for 4 hours, or overnight. A skin forms, and that skin is what cracks into the crazed top. Baked straight away they come out smooth and look wrong.
6. Bake at 160C for 20 minutes, until the cracks are pale gold and the sides are firm.
7. Cool them on the tray. They are soft when hot and crisp when cold, so judging them out of the oven will have you overbaking the next batch.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes