White and slightly rough to the touch, slightly rippled and incredibly good, almond paste cookies remind me of summer mornings, those in which cicadas fill the air with their singing, the smell of coffee welcomes you in the morning and I wear a linen shirt while leafing through my favorite magazine about home design.
It’s so nice to be able to dream between a page and the other, trying to imagine how my house will look like, someday.
Each time I imagine it in a light color, with white curtains floating in the wind, a sea view and a long wooden table where to eat, write, play cards, toast and knead.
And I don’t know why my heart always brings me to my beloved Sicily. That’s where my amazing trip with Miele starts, and it’s where my recipe comes from. I like to think of it as a sign of destiny and, with a cup of coffee in my hand and my linen shirt that smells good, I travel with my mind, because dreams are my daily bread.
So I picture myself in my Sicilian house, I turn on the music, I grab some sugar, almonds from Noto, eggs and put everything on the table together with my feelings and love for food.
I chop, mix, knead, cut, shape, decorate and turn on the Miele oven by setting it on Thermovent Plus mode with a steam spray right after putting them in the oven. A low percentage of steam in the first minutes of cooking helps me achieve a perfect result, otherwise the high temperature of the oven and dry air would dry the cookie dough too much. Conversely, by adding steam, the almond paste will remain slightly golden outside, but soft inside. And while my house gets filled with almond scent, I just have to wait for my cookies to be ready.
The heat inside the oven is absolutely homogeneous, giving the possibility to put several baking trays at the same time obtaining a perfect and uniform golden color on all levels.
I’m might not be a sexy bomb when I take pictures, but I’m explosive in the kitchen. Here’s a fabulous and easy-to-make recipe just for you.
Recipe. FOR ABOUT 25 COOKIES
125 g (4.5 oz) peeled almonds + 125 g (4.5 oz) sugar + 1 egg white + icing sugar.
In a mixer, chop the almonds with the sugar until you get a fairly fine flour. Transfer to a bowl, add the egg white and stir well until the mixture is smooth. Place the dough on a surface covered with icing sugar, cut it into slices and create “S”-shaped or ball-shaped cookies (or both). Decorate each cookie with an almond or candied cherry. Let them rest for 30 minutes and bake in the already warm Thermovent Plus oven at 180 ° C/ 350° F for 8 minutes with a steam spray right after putting them in the oven. They should get a light golden color and still be soft. Let the cookies cool and then remove them from the baking tray.
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