Pinolate

Almond paste rolled in pine nuts and baked soft, with no flour at all.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg.

Ingredients

• 250 g ground almonds
• 200 g caster sugar
• 2 egg whites
• 200 g pine nuts
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• icing sugar, to dust

Method

1. Mix the ground almonds, sugar, zest and salt, then work in the whites a little at a time to a stiff paste. Stop as soon as it holds — more white makes it unrollable.
2. THERE IS NO FLOUR AND NO BUTTER. These are a marzipan biscuit, which is why they stay soft and chewy for a week where a flour biscuit would go hard.
3. Rest the paste 1 hour.
4. Roll walnut-sized balls with damp hands.
5. PRESS EACH BALL INTO A BOWL OF PINE NUTS AND ROLL IT so the nuts stud the whole surface, pressing them in firmly. Loose nuts fall off in the oven and burn on the tray.
6. Set them well apart on lined trays and flatten them slightly.
7. Bake at 165C for 15 minutes only — until the pine nuts are just gold and the biscuits still look underdone. They firm as they cool and a minute too long makes them dry.

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