Almond Flour Amaretti Cookie Food

AMARETTI COOKIES

Steps:

• Prepare oven and baking sheet: Preheat oven to 300°F and line baking sheets with parchment paper.
• Make the dough: In a food processor pulse together the almond flour and sugar. Add the vanilla and almond extract and pulse for a few seconds. Add the eggs, one at a time, and continue to process until the dough is smooth.
• Dollop dough onto lined baking pan, dust with sugar: Place teaspoons of the dough on the parchment paper-lined baking sheet and dust with sugar.
• Bake: Bake at 300°F for 24-30 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely before serving. They will be slightly chewy at first, but they will be nicely crispy as a day or two goes by. Store in a cool, dry place. (Note: I usually under-bake mine since I like them chewy. If that's your preference, bake them for about 20-24 minutes.)

AMARETTI - ITALIAN CHEWY ALMOND COOKIES

Steps:

• If you're using whole peeled almonds, toast them in the oven until lightly brown. This will give a darker color and more bright flavor to amaretti.
• Once almonds reach desired color, cool them completely.
• Pulse almonds and bitter apricot kernels (if you opt to use those as in traditional Italian recipe) with sugar in a food processor as finely as you can.
• NOTE: if you are using almond flour, use confectioners sugar instead of regular sugar. This way you don't need to use a food processor. Simply mix everything in the bowl.
• Add almond extract.
• Beat egg white with a pinch of salt until completely white and fluffy.
• Start to fold egg white into sugar and almond mix. Add a couple of table spoons at a time. You should reach silky and stiff consistency of the cookie dough. NOTE: You may not need to use all egg whites, just enough to get the dough together.
• Sprinkle work surface with some powdered/confectioners sugar.
• Pinch off some dough and roll it into ⅔ of an inch rope.Using a dough scraper cut the rope into ⅔ of an inch pieces.
• Roll each "pillow" giving it a ball shape (size of a walnut) and roll it in generous amount of confectioners sugar.
• Place each cookie on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.Decorate with an almond nut (optional).
• Bake in preheated to 350F oven for 12-15 minutes, just until inside the crinkles amaretti become lightly brown.

AMARETTI COOKIES

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
• Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
• Break the almond paste into small pieces and place in bowl of electric mixer along with the sugar.
• Mix on low speed until very fine.
• Add the egg whites in three additions, mix well after each addition.
• Continue mixing the dough until very smooth, about 3 to 4 minutes.
• Place a tablespoon of dough on the cookie sheet (space them 1 inch apart).
• Lightly press the top of each cookie to smooth out the surface.
• Sprinkle a little sugar on top of each cookie.
• Bake for 15 minutes, or until the cookies have risen, are a deep golden color and have tiny cracks.
• Remove from the oven.
• When cool gently peel cookies from parchment.
• Note: If they stick to the parchment, turn the paper over, take a damp paper towel and gently wipe the bottom of the parchment paper to loosen the cookie.