Amaretti

Amaretti

A few years ago, I moved to Orono, Maine for a few months.  It was a very in between time–writing and relationships developing but still tenuous.  I was unemployed and endlessly filling out applications.  

Tyler was finishing up his masters at the University of Maine, and I was lucky enough to tag along to readings and after reading dinners with the other graduate students.  My favorite of these events surrounded James Wagner reading from his homophonic translation of Cesar Vellejo’s Trilce.

The first day we went with Wagner and a group of our grad friends to Acadia National Park to stare meaningfully into the early April ocean and clamber over rocks.  The following, Wagner gave his reading and a seminar talk.  It also started snowing, so that by the next evening, shin deep snow laid over everything as we made our way to professors Carla Billitteri’s and Ben Friedlander’s home for the dinner they held for Wagner.  

Which finally brings us around to food.  Within moments of taking off our coats, Carla handed us demitasses of moka pot espresso with a perfectly sugary amaretti perched on each saucer.  She and Ben toured us around all the bookshelves in their house as we sipped and crunched.  Salt-studded parmasen and ricotta salata, many bottles of red wine, fennel-orange salad, and a Sicilian pasta with fish followed.  I ate and drank an embarrassing amount of everything, because everything was revelatory, while listening to conversations that always looped back to the literary.

Hours later, Carla passed out another round of espresso and amaretti.  I asked about them, and she explained that her sister sent the amaretti from Italy because they’re almost impossible to make correctly at home.  Balancing the bitter and sweet almond flavors is difficult enough, not to mention figuring out how to make a crisp, finely grained cookie rather than a petrous, almondy lump.

Making sweets at home that perhaps ought to be left to professional bakers and factories is a food blog trope worth starting a blog with.  There are lots of homemade poptarts and milanos to be found.  There are also several interesting diy takes on the classicly store-bought amaretti.  But my version follows primarily from  Ann Rogers’s in The New Cookbook for Poor Poets and Others: Revised & Enlarged. The best part of her book are its notes.  She precedes her recipe for amaretti with this:

One dream is to become a very rich poet and buy a whole huge tin of Amaretti. I would crunch away with abandon.  I would make a collage from the little papers that enrobe each macaroon.  And when the great red and orange and white tin was empty, I would carry it to my loft as a storehouse for a variety of treasures.  Or I would fill it with my own Amaretti.

She goes on to call for half a pound of whole almonds to be pulverized with sugar in a food chopper before being mixed with a simple meringue and a couple of teaspoons almond extract.  She exhorts her readers to “Try to locate almond extract that is made with a syrup, not an alcohol base.  The flavor is far superior and is better retained in the baking process.”

Happily, the co-op has bulk almond flour.  I figured one and a half cups would be about right to replace half a pound of whole almonds.  I also found Frontier’s alcohol-free almond extract that suspends bitter almond oil in a syrupy water/glycerin base .  As if fate were encouraging me to try this recipe in earnest, I recently stumbled upon an empty, great red and orange and white Amarretti tin at a thrift shop.  (But, ironically for a naturally gluten-free recipe, I’ve taken to using it as canister for wheat flour.)

My method differs somewhat from Rogers’s.  It seems much easier, first of all, to use blanched almond flour instead of crushing your own almonds to a consistent powder.  I also divided the sugar so that some is added with the meringue, hoping that will lend some stability to the foam and lead to crisper, lighter cookies.  For my second try, I rolled spoonfuls of dough lightly between my palms to give them a smoother look.

These don’t end up being identical to store-bought amaretti, they’re softer and craggier, but they strike similar chords and disappear quickly with coffee.

Amaretti

[two to three dozen, depending on the size of your cookies.]

1 ½ cup almond flour

½ cup sugar

2 egg whites

big pinch of salt

2 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp almond extract (Frontier brand.)

Mix the almond flour and sugar in a small bowl.

In a separate, very clean bowl, whisk the two egg whites with the salt until foamy.  Sprinkle in the two tablespoons of sugar and continue to whisk until the meringue forms peaks when you lift the whisk.  You want it to be fluffy and for the peaks to be almost but not quite stiff.  Whisk in the almond extract.

Fold in the almond flour and sugar mixture gently.  The egg whites will deflate quite a bit.

Spoon or pinch off small bits and roll gently between your palms.  Place an inch or so apart on an ungreased cookie sheet and allow to rest while you preheat the oven to 350.

Bake about 25 minutes, or until golden.  If you like, let them cool and then pop them back in the oven for a few minutes for extra crunch.