Pasticcini di mandorle e...
I like to make notes in my cookbooks to leave myself reminders of what went right and wrong with the recipe or the way I followed it. Don’t use cold milk! Try a higher oven temperature next time. Even better the day after. After I feel I’ve got the hang of a recipe, I switch from notes to tally marks, each one a tiny record of my pleasure with how the recipe turned out. My pages of Rachel Roddy’s Five Quarters: Recipes and Notes from A Kitchen in Rome are full of tally marks and pasticcini di mandorle — soft almond biscuits — has six of them.
Besides the texture (crisp, dense, soft, a little chewy) and flavour of these lemony, marzipan-y biscuits, what delights me about them is how four ingredients (almonds, sugar, lemon, eggs) come together so simply and beautifully. I’ve got a lot of patience for complicated recipes and I’m usually happy to set aside time to make them, but sometimes I want to make something I know will come together in a few minutes and turn out well. These cookies are exactly that: easy to make, delicious, and reliable - even when you adjust the ingredients slightly.
Usually, I make them exactly as Roddy recommends, but I once found myself both keen to make these biscuits and low on almonds. So, I decided to top up the ground almonds with cornmeal. A recipe deviation gone right! And a new note on this recipe was born: Works well with a mix of ground almonds and coarse cornmeal.
Ingredients:
350g ground almonds (or 200g ground almonds, 150g cornmeal)
200g icing sugar (plus extra on a plate for dusting)
the finely grated zest of a large unwaxed lemon
2 medium eggs, beaten with a fork — keep aside the fork for combining the ingredients
Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 180C / 160C fan / gas mark 4 / 350F and put a sheet of baking parchment on a baking tray.
2. In a large bowl, use the fork you beat the eggs with to combine the ground almonds (and cornmeal if using), icing sugar, and lemon zest.
3. Add the eggs to the bowl and continue to mix with the fork until you get a sticky dough.
4. Rub some icing sugar between your palms. Grab a walnut-sized piece of dough and roll it between your hands to form a ball. Dust the ball with more sugar by rolling it on the plate of icing sugar. Place the ball on the prepared baking tray.
5. Use your thumb to indent the centre of each ball of dough.
6. Bake for about 20 minutes. Take the biscuits out when the icing sugar has crinkled and they're just beginning to colour on top.
7. Move the biscuits to a wire rack and cool them before eating — or storing in an airtight container.