Delicious Italian almond cookies
These almond cookies, or amaretti in Italian, are delicious and also gluten and lactose free. This means that I can eat them, Yummy!
They are traditional amaretti, easy and fun to make. The hardest thing is probably is getting the egg whites. My kids can do this and I am sure with this recipe my 13 year old daughter Iris is going to have a try and be successful.
Amaro, meaning bitter is the origin of the these amaretti: little bitter ones. These use to be flavored with bitter almonds. Bitter almonds contain hydrocyanic acid, or organic cyanide. Even a few of them can kill. So nowadays we flavor them with almond essence or almond extract. The latter being the best one to use as it is not an artificial almond taste and contain actual almond oil.
Depending on how you prefer them you can bake them between 13 to 20 minutes. I do prefer the softer ones for enjoying them just like that. But if I wanted to used them for example in an almond cookie Bavarian Cream I would bake them longer till completely dry and crispy because I would grind them in a food processor to little bits before using them in the cream.
Here is the recipe for these delicious amaretti:
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Amaretti
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Yield: 40 Amaretti 1x
- Diet: Gluten Free
Description
Easy to make delicious almond cookies.
Ingredients
- 4 egg whites
- 400 grams almond flower
- 240 grams of sugar
- bowl with icing sugar to roll the dough balls in
- pinch of salt
- 10 ml almond extract (half up to full little bottle)
Instructions
- Separate the eggs, we are only using the egg whites.
- Whisk the egg whites in a bowl a little.
- Add the almond extract to the egg whites and mix well.
- Mix the sugar with the almond flour well.
- Add the sugar with almond flour mix to the egg whites.
- Mix well with hands or use a rubber scraper
- Cool the dough in your fridge for at least an hour, but skip if you don’t have the time
- Make little balls and roll them in a bowl with icing sugar so they are covered nicely
- Here you go 🙂
- Put the balls on a baking tray
- Use two fingers to press each ball into a cookie shape
- Preheat your oven till 180 Celsius or 350 Fahrenheit
- Bake your cookies anywhere from 13 to 20 minutes depending on you taste. 13 minutes leaves them more moist, 20 minutes gives them more crunch.
- Here is the end result
- They should keep well at least 10 days if stored in an airtight container. They never last that long in our family of five.
- Buon appetito!
Notes
You can add a little Amaretto di Saronno if you like liquor. In case you want a lot of that, just add same relative amount almond flour and sugar.
Adding lemon zest with limoncello will turn these in a groovy fresh variety.
- Prep Time: 60
- Cook Time: 15
- Category: Desserts
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Italian
