Restaurant Recipes
Fratelli's Cafe Italiano Amaretti Cookies
Fratelli's owner Jim Jungmann has roots in Northern Italy, and so do these wonderful almond cookies called amaretti.
Yield: about 2 1/2 dozen cookies
On a wall in a little bakery/trattoria in Pompeii's ruins, there is a 2,000 yea -old recipe calling for crushed almonds, stone-ground whole-wheat flour, egg whites and honey. Caesar Augustus and Nero are said to have eaten these very cookies.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups whole almonds, ground fine in food processor
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 1 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar (sift first, then measure)
- 3 large egg whites
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 1/4 teaspoon lemon extract
Instructions
- Heat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Mix ground almonds, flour and sugar together until thoroughly mixed. Set aside.
- Beat egg whites, almond extract and lemon extract together with an electric mixer on high speed until stiff peaks form.
- Fold almond mixture into beaten egg whites.
- Drop rounded teaspoonsful onto buttered or sprayed wax paper-lined cookie sheet, leaving about 1 1/2 inches between cookies.
- Bake for about 12 to 15 minutes, or just until cookies are lightly browned. For a chewy consistency, remove cookies from oven immediately. For a crisp cookie, turn off oven and leave door slightly ajar to allow the cookies to dry out for 1 hour.
Attribution
Fratelli's, San Antonio, Texas