Italian almond biscuits, the easiest bake to make
Simple, quick and so moreish you will want to eat them all. Easy to make with children.
I will never forget my first taste of these melt in your mouth, crunchy but soft almond biscuits.
When I was pregnant with my first baby my husband and I went on a ‘baby moon’. At that time, although engaged, we weren’t sure when or even if we were going to get married, and so we decided that before we became parents we would spend four weeks travelling around Italy exploring and eating. We started in Rome, went to Naples, took in the Amalfi Coast and finally took a flight to Sicily. (Where we have actually returned to again and again, I love Sicily.) During this trip was when I first discovered these delicate almond biscuits, and also the shops that make them. If you know me well, you will know that I absolutely love biscuits, dainty cakes and any type of patisserie so to discover that you could go into these little ‘Dolce shops’ pick a selection and have them all wrapped up in a paper honestly made me ecstatic.
Arriving home from that trip I had almond withdrawal symptoms and set about trying to find a recipe for them…which was actually really difficult! I had a lot of failed attempts trying to get the perfect consistency of these biscuits, which are crispy on the outside but very soft in the middle. I found getting the size right a challenge as well - too many ground almonds and they were tiny and hard, not enough and they spread and looked like coconut macaroons!
They really do have the simplest ingredients and if you get the measurements right they are an absolute doddle to make.
**Note that the mixture will be quite wet, you have pop the blobs of mixture into the icing sugar and then roll them into a ball, don’t roll them into a ball first as it won’t work!
Italian almond biscuits
Makes around 20
Ingredients
4 egg whites
275g caster sugar
500g ground almonds
1tsp almond essence
250g icing sugar
Method
Heat the oven to 180 degrees and line a biscuit tray with baking parchment
Separate your egg whites into a clean bowl and lightly whisk until frothy
In a separate bowl add the caster sugar and almonds and mix well
Add the eggs whites to the dry ingredients and add the almond essence, mix well
Sieve the icing sugar into a wide shallow bowl
Scoop out golf ball sized mixture and drop them into the icing sugar coating the mixture until it feels ‘dry’ and you are able mould the mixture into a small ball
Place on the prepared biscuit tray and continue with the rest of the mixture in the same way
Place in the oven and cook for around12 minutes until ‘cracked’ on top and slightly brown
Leave to cool so they harden up on the bottom then remove from tray and enjoy!