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Amaretti almonds and lemon

Name: Amaretti almonds and lemon
Prep time: 31 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 46 min
Yield: 24 pieces
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 2 egg whites; 2 pinches salt; 200 g caster sugar; ½ teaspoon vanilla extract; 250 g ground almonds; ½ lemon; 30 g caster sugar; 30 g icing sugar; 25 whole almonds

These delicious little Italian cookies, both soft and crunchy, with their almond and lemon flavour, will delight you.

2,986 5/5 (4 reviews)

Duration

50 min.

Difficulty

Easy

Last modified on: March 8^th 2026

Step by step recipe Ingredients Duration Nutritional facts Cost Comments

For 24 pieces, you will need:

1 2 egg whites
2 2 pinches salt
3 200 g caster sugar
4 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
5 250 g ground almonds
6 ½ lemon
7 30 g caster sugar
8 30 g icing sugar
9 25 whole almonds
Total weight: 665 grams

Times for this recipe

Preparation

35 min.

Cooking

15 min.

All in all

50 min.

Preparation 35 min.

Cooking 15 min.

When should you start or finish this recipe?

If you start now, at , you will finish around : ?.Change start time

To finish around 7pm, you'll need to have started before: .Change end time

Step by step recipe

Stage 1 - ⌛ 3 min.

Pour 2 egg whites and 2 pinches salt into a large bowl and beat the egg whites until stiff.

Stage 2 - ⌛ 3 min.

Pour over 200 g caster sugar, ½ teaspoon vanilla extract, 250 g ground almonds and the zest and juice of ½ lemon.

Stage 3 - ⌛ 4 min.

Mix by hand until smooth.

Stage 4 - ⌛ 4 min.

Cut the dough into 20-25 g pieces.

Stage 5 - ⌛ 4 min.

Roll the pieces between your 2 hands to form beautiful little balls, as regular as possible.

Note: If you have children around, let them help you, as they'll love the "play dough" aspect.

Stage 6

Pour 30 g caster sugar into a shallow dish (or better still, a springform tin if you have one), and coat the dough balls with sugar, in packs of around 6, turning the dish on the spot.

You want a very thin, even layer of sugar all over the dough ball.

Stage 7 - ⌛ 5 min.

Do this for all the dough balls.

Preheat your oven to 170°C (340°F).

Stage 8 - ⌛ 5 min.

Then do the same with 30 g icing sugar.

Stage 9

Then roll the balls in your hands to remove the excess powdered sugar.

Again, you want a very thin, even layer of powdered sugar all over the dough ball.

Stage 10

Do this for all the balls and place them on a sheet of baking paper (this is important), set on a baking sheet.

Stage 11

Place an almond on each ball, and press down with your fingers to flatten the ball a little and make it crack on the sides.

Stage 12 - ⌛ 3 min.

Do this for all the balls...

Stage 13 - ⌛ 15 min.

...and bake at 170°C (340°F) for about 15 minutes.

Stage 14

Cool on a wire rack and enjoy.

Remarks

It's very important to place the balls to be baked on a sheet of baking paper, as the amaretti are very sticky after baking.

In the original recipe, it's so much for so much sugar and almond powder, but in my opinion it's a little too sweet.

The vanilla extract can be replaced by 10g of vanilla sugar, to be subtracted from the powdered sugar weight.

The recipe can easily be adapted to a hazelnut version: hazelnut powder and hazelnuts on top.

Keeping: Several days in a jar or closed metal box.

Source: From a recipe by Francesco Mattana.

Nutritional information

	Proteins	Carbohydrates	Fats	Calories	Energy
Per 100 g	8 g RDI=13 %	47 g RDI=18 %	22 g RDI=31 %	428 kcal RDI=21 %	1,794 kJ RDI=21 %
Per piece	2 g RDI=4 %	13 g RDI=5 %	6 g RDI=9 %	118 kcal RDI=6 %	495 kJ RDI=6 %
Whole recipe	56 g RDI=86 %	313 g RDI=118 %	151 g RDI=207 %	2,839 kcal RDI=142 %	11,887 kJ RDI=142 %