You have been right, those of you who advised making tender almond biscuits with egg whites in place of the whole egg. I am stubborn, even though, and prideful, and attached to my “coat-on” tender almond biscuits; those which have stepped in like a further supporting hand, supplying puddings, gives, picnics, and peace offerings. To make some other sort would seem to betray them, but I needed to remind myself that you can have multiple manners of doing something. It is genuine; whisked egg whites make for the most tender marzipan-hearted paste di mandorla, the sugar-covered, jewel-studded bling that fills the grass-fronted counters of Sicilian pastry stores and sends puffs of icing sugar down the front of your T-blouse.
The recipe I followed comes from an e-book called Cucina Siciliana: Ricette, Sapori, Sagre (recipes, flavors, and fairs), which I sold from a Sicilian bookshop in liquidation, a few years in the past. Slim, and with shades as intense as the food it promises, it’s one of the few books from which I want to make the whole thing. Like many Sicilian sweets, the recipe starts offevolved with almonds rich in moisture and vital oils – each of which uses up while almonds are floor and left too long in packets jars. So if you could, make your ground almonds. This is without difficulty finished via lowering blanched almonds to a high-quality flour in a meal processor if you peel them yourself, even better (I don’t).
I do a combination of biscuit shapes. You can also do as the Sicilians and roll the balls in pine nuts or beaten pistachios, stud with glacé cherries or a curl of candied peel, or cross full-on Liberace and use a couple of decorations.
These are as a good deal marzipan chocolates as they’re biscuits, with the egg white keeping them sticky and mild, so that they want cautious cooking: 10-14 minutes at 170C (150C fan)/gas 3½. In this era, they’ll have unfolded barely, cracked at the rims, and turned opaque with just a contact of the lightest gold on top.
The specific time will vary from oven to oven. In my fierce gas oven (the equal one to Sophia Loren, in line with her e-book In the Kitchen with Love – which is in which the similarities cease), I bake the biscuits on the center shelf and keep a close eye on them, so that they don’t seize on the lowest. These aren’t biscuits to walk away from – they require you to loiter close by. When they arrive out, they’ll be tender, so let them cool before lifting them onto a plate and dusting them with more icing sugar.
Freshly made paste di mandorla is properly matched with cherries. Ideally, the cherries have to be so bloodless that their skin is sort of a glass-fronted beer fridge and misty with condensation – a taut and sparkling evaluation to the marzipan-hearted sweet. For extra symmetry, cherries have an almond-scented stone to suck on. Well-matched and additionally adorable to look at, a plate of icing sugar-dusted rounds and a large bowl of the reddest fruit stalks up and waiting to be knotted. One of my favorite ways to swallow my pride and quit a meal right now of the year.
Heat the oven to 170C (150C fan)/fuel 3½. In a food processor, grind the almonds into flour, tip into a bowl, then add the icing sugar and lemon zest. Whisk the egg whites to smooth peaks, add to the almond blend and bring the whole lot collectively right into a dough (palms are nice for this). If it appears too smooth and sticky, upload a spoonful of flour.
Dust your fingers with icing sugar and make balls by rolling walnut-sized lumps of dough among your fingers. To enhance, either press an entire almond into the center of every biscuit or make a deep indent together with your finger and fill it with a blob of cherry jam. Or, you can pinch them right into a difficult pyramid form with the aid of pinching 4 aspects of the biscuit to get a cross-formed ridge. I do a combination of all three.
Put the dough shapes, properly spaced out so that they have room to increase, on a baking tray covered with two layers of baking paper, and bake at the middle shelf for 10-12 minutes, or till they are lightly golden. They will nevertheless be smooth while pulled from the oven, so depart them to chill absolutely, then elevate to a plate and dirt with more icing sugar.
