Amaretti Cookies

Amaretti are Italian almond cookies made with almond meal or almond paste. These cookies are native to Saronno, Italy and originated during the Renaissance era. Amaretti cookies are similar to French Macaroons. These make a great accompaniment to ice-cream or can be made as a sandwich with ganache or jam filling. Crumbled amaretti can be sprinkled on desserts such as trifle pudding and mousses.

I made these yesterday and enjoyed it as is. I shared some of the cookies with my friends whom I met for lunch. One of them has a sweet tooth just like me and she loved them.

I felt the cookies were a bit on the sweeter side, though the taste wasn’t bad. I lined the cookie sheet with parchment paper and baked for 11 ½ – 12 minutes. Despite that the bottom of the cookie was slightly burnt. Other than that, cookies tasted fine. After I bought almond paste to prepare the amaretti, I found another recipe which is made with homemade almond meal. I shall try that recipe at a later time. This is a 3 Ingredient Recipe; almond paste, sugar and egg whites.

I baked these cookies in three batches and hence you will see that total time for this preparation is longer. The cookies did not expand as I had expected it to. Over the weekend I baked some hazelnut peanut butter cookies and those spread so much that I carefully had to break the cookie on all four sides. Keeping that in mind, I spaced these cookies almost 1 ½ – 2” apart and ended up with 3 sheets of cookies. Otherwise, these can be baked in a big baking sheet in two batches.

Source: Joy of Baking
Total Time: 50 minutes (includes baking time for 3 batches)
Preparation: 15 minutes
Bake Time: 12 minutes per batch
Yields: 4 – 4 ½ dozen, depending on the size of the amaretti

Ingredients:

• 8 oz Almond paste (I used a paste that came in a carton and canned paste is recommended. Mind you almond paste is different from marzipan)
• 1 cup Superfine or Extra Fine Sugar (I used extra fine sugar)
• 2 Egg Whites
• Granulated Sugar for dusting

Preparation:

• I left the eggs on the countertop for about ½ hour to bring it to room temperature.
• The dough can be prepared either using a beater or a food processor and I felt food processor would be easier.
• Keep a pastry bag ready, fitted with a ½” plain tip. I used a ¼” tip and later felt it would have been easier just dropping the dough with a spoon instead.
• Line baking sheets with parchment paper and keep ready.
• Preheat the oven to 375F.
• Cut almond paste into small cubes and take in a food processor container and add the sugar.
• Pulse or process almond paste and sugar until fine.
• Add egg whites in three batches, processing the mixture well, after each addition.
• Continuing processing the mixture until it is very smooth, about 1 minute.
• Fill the pastry bag with the almond mixture/dough.
• Pipe about 1 – 1 ½” mounds or 1 – 1 ½” wide cookies onto the parchment, spacing 1” apart.
• After making the cookies, with a damp piece of paper towel, lightly press the top of each cookie to smooth out the surface.
• Lightly sprinkle sugar on each cookie.
• Bake in a preheated oven for 15 minutes or until cookies are risen, golden brown in color and have tiny cracks. It took about 11 ½ – 12 minutes in my oven.
• Remove from the oven and place the sheet on a cool rack to cool. When cool, gently peel cookie from the parchment paper.
• Store in an airtight container.

This day in 2014: Mango Strawberry Milkshake

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