Amaretti Cookies
Amaretto or Amaretti (in plural) are italian almond paste cookies. Like all italian food, someone’s mama has her own way of making her own amaretti. But I made my amaretti cookies today from a recipe in Italian Food Forever. I didn’t really follow the recipe to the core, i just adapted from it. The amaretti comes in two version; the hard (basic) and the soft in the center version. The only difference is the way the egg whites are handled in the recipe. If you want a cookie with a soft center, you don’t beat your egg whites till stiff and vice versa if you want to have hard cookies 
To make amaretti is actually quite simple. The ingredients are pretty straight forward although there are many variations – the basic ingredients are almonds, sugar and eggs. Of course, we can’t forget almond liquer of your choice for flavoring. If you don’t have any almond liquer at home, just get almond extract from your grocery place. To me, I think fresh unblanched almonds are imperative in making this cookies excellent. I’ve also added cocoa powder to my amaretti because i looooove chocolate! 
Amaretti cookies:
220g of unblanched whole almonds (or 2 cups worth of grounded almond meal)
3 teaspoon of cocoa powder
1 cup of sugar
2 egg whites, beaten stiff
1 teaspoon almond liquer/almond extract
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and get your cookie sheet pan lined with parchment paper.
Almond powder
2. In a food processor, add in your whole almonds, cocoa powder and sugar. Blend altogether until you get a fine texture. Add your almond liquer in and combine a few times more.
3. Transfer the sugary almond powder into a mixing bowl.
4. Add your egg white in to the almond mixture and fold to combine.
5. With a piping bag (or a ziplock bag with one of its corners cut), transfer some of the almond mixture until the bag and pipe about the size of a walnut into the cookie sheet. Let the piped out mixture sit for about 20 minutes before you pop it into the preheated oven.
Fresh out of the oven
6. Bake for 15-20 mins or until golden brown.
7. Let it cool before you store it in an air tight container.
Amaretto cookie is good paired with tea, coffee or any sweet wine. This light cookie is an excellent base for desserts. Actually, you can make bigger amaretti cookies and use them as a sandwich for cream, ice cream, jams or even nutella! They’re just delicious…
i allways check on your blog everyday
Sometimes twice if there anint any new post – hoping to catch the new one.
The COOKIES omg – the looking damn nice laaaaaaaa
I really wish that i could get some cookies – am natural cookis monster,
sasi: thanks man, it makes my heart all warm and fuzzy to have a fan like this hahahaha…:) I appreciate it
hey, if you’re a natural cookie monster, you must try this one, it’s SOOOOOO good and the amaretto is very light too before you know it, you’d be eating half of the pan’s worth of cookies!
I don’t really bake…but I’m tempted to try this because it’s easy(seem that it does not need any mixer/blender, right?)
Just don’t have the almond extract/liquer…wonder if I can use vanilla extract?
Tigerfish: Actually you need to use a food processor to grind the whole almonds from the recipe.
However, if you can get two cups worth of ground almonds at the grocers, you can substitute with that
Then this recipe would be really no fuss!
Although I would really suggest that you make sure you almonds are as fresh as it gets, which why i suggest using whole unblanched almonds. Chances are they’d be fresher than the ready made grounded ones.
You can use vanilla extract too but if you want like reaaaal almond flavor which is distinct in amaretto cookies, try to get almond extract/essence from the baking section if you can
I’ll try, I’ll try!
I cannot keep looking at these cookies now…feel like eating them ;p
you make wanna try it too!
its lunch time now, and i am hungry…
keropokman: I’ll send some to you if you want but I can’t guarantee it’ll get there in one piece or if the postman will steal it on the way to your place…:P
Well i live – in a place where im FULLY equiped to make maggi only .
can you make the napolitana pasta
I want it really creamy
eekke
i first order, hope i dont trouble you when every1 starts asking (because i kinda start it)
Can I ask why you are leaving the piped mixture sit for 20 minutes before baking? Mine always go flat during baking and I am trying to figure out why and what the trick is to get them to retain their shape…
Sedef Imer: I leave my pipped mixture sit for 20 minutes because it gives the cookies a nice, slightly dried outer layer which gives the cookies a good crunch after it bakes. Try to let your cookies sit in the fridge instead of the counter where it might be warm and can make your mixture runny. Hope this helps!