Nocciolini di Chivasso

Hazelnut meringues the size of a peppercorn, dried rather than baked.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg.

Ingredients

• 200 g hazelnuts, roasted and skinned
• 200 g caster sugar
• 2 egg whites
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Method

1. Grind the hazelnuts with half the sugar to a fine powder. The sugar stops the nuts going to butter under the blade.
2. Whisk the whites with the salt to soft peaks, then add the remaining sugar a spoonful at a time to a stiff, glossy meringue.
3. Fold the hazelnut powder in, keeping as much air as you can.
4. PIPE THEM THE SIZE OF A PEPPERCORN, no bigger, well apart. Three or four millimetres across. Piped larger they make a perfectly good hazelnut macaroon, which is a different thing — the size is the whole character of these.
5. Leave them to form a skin at room temperature for 1 hour.
6. DRY THEM, do not bake them: 100C for 40 minutes, then the oven off and the door ajar for another hour. They should stay pale and come away from the paper clean.
7. Any colour at all means the oven was too hot.

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