Amaretti (Almond Cookies)

Kari and I spent some time this week making Amaretti cookies. We had two problems, blanching almonds and using a mortar and pestle to crush them. This is what we learned.

Blanching almonds: I didn't happen to know what blanched almonds were (peeled almonds). So, I looked up "How to blanch almonds" on the internet. It advised me to pour boiling water over almonds, wait for no more than one minute, pour the water off and then remove the almond skins. I assumed it would be easy, but it didn't seem to work. I had to use a knife to skin the almonds and couldn't believe that it should be such a difficult procedure. We then tried adding more hot water, which helped a little but not that much. Kari then remembered that blanching had something to do with plunging food into cold water once you heated it. So we put the almonds in a pan of water and let them boil for a minute and then plunged them into cold water. It worked! The skins practically fell off. Problem one was solved!

Mortar and pestle: The recipe asked us to place almonds with sugar in a mortar and pestle, like anybody has one of those in their kitchen (okay, okay, ya'll probably do but miss non-gourmet here does not). I tried smashing some almonds with the meat cleaver, but thought that would take all day. Kari suggested running them through the colander, which I didn't think would work. I had already spent far too much time on these cookies so we decided to try the blender. My husband came in at about this time and showed us some funny videos on youtube called. "will it blend". A mortar and pestle would cost less than this puppy, but if you ever want to blend a cell-phone I would purchase one. For the sake of Amaretti the cheap blender or a food processor will work fine.

These cookies did turn out quite well. They are hard cookies, naturally gluten free. They were good with ice cream and would be good with hot cocoa because you could dip them. Now that I know they can be made easily I will try them again.

Amaretti Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup blanched almonds (see above for blanching instructions)
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
confectioners sugar - for dusting

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees
2. Combine sugar and blanched almonds in a blender or food processor and mix well.
3. Add egg and mix some more
4. Roll into small balls - walnut sized
5. Place on greased cookie sheet or parchment paper
6. Sprinkle with confectioners sugar
7. Bake for 25-30 minutes, they should be light brown. They come out of the oven soft and then harden a little upon cooling
8. Store in a resealable plastic bag