I am now well over halfway through this Cookie Countdown, the end is in sight and I have gone through so much butter and sugar, it's unreal. But worth it when in the midst of it all, you have these little gems of a cookie.
Almond has always been one of the most understated flavours in my opinion, but also one of my favourites. Hand me all the almond croissants, bakewell tarts, healthy almond bars, anything with almond in, I will try and usually devour. It also happens to be one of my favourite alcohol choices: Amaretto.
For these cookies, the amaretto is a subtle flavour and if you didn't have amaretto to hand, then almond extract would also be a suitable substitute for these, but I would reduce the extract to 1 tbsp as it can be quite concentrated. For those with amaretto liquor to hand, get baking because these will quickly become your new favourite biscuit, not just for Christmas, but for all year through.
These cookies also make great make ahead dough to have chilling in the fridge for up to 3 days in advance. As well as that, they also make great biscuits for gifting at Christmas, simply package up in some cellophane bags and wrap some ribbon around and you're all set for a quick and easy gift.
Soft Amaretti Biscuits
- Preheat the oven to 180c/350f and line baking sheet with greaseproof paper.
- Whisk the egg whites in a bowl, until stiff.
- In a large bowl, combine the caster sugar, ground almonds, amaretto and almond extract. Then gently fold through the egg whites - it may look hard at first to combine, but it will gradually come together into a smooth paste.
- Then roll out 20g balls of the dough and then roll in caster sugar and then icing sugar before placing them on the baking sheet. These cookies will only spread a small amount, so you can fit quite a few to a baking sheet. Bake them for 15 minutes, they should have started to go a little bit golden. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.
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