Our friend Anita brought us a gift of her home baked Italian almond biscuits and we really loved them. She has kindly shared her recipe with us. These lovely biscuits have a crunchy, golden almond coating with a chewy almond center.

They are so delicious and easy to make. Just use a quality almond meal and a good smooth apricot jam. The addition of a couple of drops of almond extract enhances their flavour too.

They can be formed into a variety of shapes and can be frozen so that you always have some at hand to offer for afternoon tea.

Served with an espresso or cappuccino or your favourite tea, you won’t be able to stop at one.

Thank you Anita for your sharing your recipe with us.

Anita’s Italian Almond Biscuits

Ingredients:

Biscuit Dough:

• 3 cups bleached almond meal
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 large egg whites, (at room temperature) pinch of salt
• 3 Tblsp smooth apricot jam
• few drops of almond extract

Topping:

• 1 large egg white (at room temperature)
• sliced almonds, blanched

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160C
2. Line a baking tray with baking paper
3. Remove eggs from fridge
4. Test each egg for freshness (they should lie horizontally at the bottom of a wide glass full of water)
5. Break and separate the eggs one at a time making sure no egg yolk gets into the whites (separating eggs is easiest to do when first removed from fridge) You will have 3 egg whites in one small bowl for the dough and 1 egg white in another to make the topping
6. Set the egg whites aside for half an hour to come to room temperature as they will produce more volume at room temperature
7. Using a large stainless steel or glass bowl, combine the almond meal and the sugar
8. Taking another medium, very clean stainless steel or glass bowl. It should be big enough to hold the expanding whites but not too large that the egg white is thinly spread in the bowl.
9. Whisk the 3 egg whites with the pinch of salt and the almond essence until they form peaks
10. Place over the almond meal/sugar mixture
11. Gently fold in the egg whites through using a spatula. Plunge the spatula down the sides of the bowl to the bottom and bring up some of the almond/sugar mixture up into the egg white with the spatula and continue while turning the bowl until all the mixture is folded through and well combined
12. Fold through the apricot jam gently using the spatula until the mixture comes together into a dough
13. Form the dough into a ball with your hands
14. In a small bowl, whisk the remaining egg white with a fork just to make a wash
15. Place the sliced almonds onto a small plate
16. Wet your hands to make the following steps a little easier to manage and wet them again from time to time
17. Take tablespoons of the mixture and form into balls or other shapes with your hands
18. Roll the almond biscuits into the egg white wash covering all sides and then press them into the sliced almonds till well coated with the almonds
19. Place the biscuits onto the lined baking tray spacing them about 3 cm apart
20. When the tray is full, place it into the pre-heated oven and bake the biscuits for 25-30 minutes or until well coloured
21. When baked, remove the tray from the oven and allow the biscuits to cool for 5 minutes then remove them to a cooling rack to cool fully.
22. Store in an air tight container in the fridge for longest shelf life
23. Enjoy these chewy almond biscuits with cup of your favourite tea or coffee