Italian Amaretti Cookies

Total Time: 35 mins Preparation Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 15 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 24
• 3 cups ground almonds (almond meal)
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon pure almond essence
• 1 tablspoon amaretto liqueur (optional)
• icing sugar for dusting the top of the cookie
• almonds or pistachios for tops cookie

Recipe

• 1 1.position the oven rack so that it is at the bottom of the oven.
• 2 2.preheat your oven to 180°c (350°f).
• 3 3.check that your ground almonds are as fine as possible. you can always pass them through a blender to make sure.
• 4 4.in a large mixing bowl, combine the ground almonds, salt and sugar, mixing well with a fork.
• 5 5.next mix in the eggs (all at once – no need to beat in advance), and almond essence.
• 6 6.line two cookie sheet with baking paper, and using a tablespoon, make round balls of cookie dough and place them on the baking sheet (leaving 2cm of space between each).press either an almond or pistachio onto thetop of ech cookie.
• 7 7.cook for 10 minutes on the lowest rack in the oven, then move the rack to the middle of the oven and bake an additional 5 minutes.leave to cool on the baking sheet for at least 5 minutes.
• 8 8.using a small sieve, sprinkle each cookie with a light dust of powder (icing) sugar.