Amaretti cookies are fabulous with an afternoon coffee or tea, or to close a meal with a sweet finish in your mouth. If you’ve never been a fan of Amaretti cookies because of the strong almond flavours, try this recipe! It doesn’t use the bitter almond extract that is included in most of the Amaretti recipes; it uses orange zest to give a fresh and cheerful flavour. These babies will fill up your house with such festive aroma while they’re being baked in the oven – your family will all get perked up for Christmas season just smelling these. What’s even better is that the recipe requires only few ingredients, and you’re done in 30 minutes including baking time! Oh, did I say that these make great gifts?

Ingredients for 30-40 Amaretti (ca. 1.5cm diameter size)

• 200g almond flour
• 100g sugar
• 50 egg white (about two medium size eggs)
• 2 pinches of salt
• zest of one orange
• 1 cup of powder sugar for dusting the Amaretti before baking

Steps

1. Heat up the oven to 160C with fan. Line baking tray with parchment paper.
2. In a bowl, put the sugar and rub with orange zest to release the aromatic oil of the orange peel.
3. Then in the same bowl, add almond flour and mix well so that the orange sugar is distributed.
4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg white with salt until firm.
5. Mix the beaten egg white with the almond mixture.
6. Scoop out the Amaretti dough with a teaspoon and roll it into a ball using your palms, about 1.5cm diameter in size. (If your Amaretti dough comes out too wet that you cannot form a ball, put the dough in the refrigerator for about 1 hour to firm it up. Another way to do it is to use two teaspoons and form a semi-ball, dust it in the powder sugar, pick it up with the teaspoons and place them on the baking tray.)
7. Roll it in the powder sugar, and place it on the baking tray. Repeat.
8. Bake for about 12-13 minutes in the 160C convection oven in the middle rack. You’ll see them beautifully crack while baking.
9. Once completely cooled they will firm up. Put them in an air-tight glass jar near the coffee machine. They are good for a week, but you’ll see how fast they disappear!