Author Notes: My mother-in-law, Alberta, makes a TON of Brutti ma Buoni, every year for Christmas. Hers is a completely different recipe; one with whole eggs and a flour made from various nuts that she picks up from the butcher, only during the holiday season. They are delicious with a cup of coffee to dip them into, they are a bit crunchy, but they mean Christmas in Rome.
I, myself, prefer chewy cookies; always have, so I created my own recipe after baking, rebaking, adding and removing flour, looking for “authentic” other recipes, and well.. The basic recipe is eggs, nut flour, sometimes chopped nuts, sometimes chocolate. I thought that choosing a meringue base would offer the chewiest result and sandwiching the chocolate in between layers hides that ugly underside that is so touchy when making meringues. —Cassie Jones
Makes: 30 cookies
Ingredients
-
7
egg whites
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1/2
teaspoon fine salt
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2 1/2
cups fine, raw sugar
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1
tablespoon Amaretto Liqueur(like Disaronno)
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3 3/4
cups Almond flour
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1/8
cup white flour(optional, but helps the cookies hold together)
-
3
ounces dark chocolate
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3
ounces milk chocolate
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Whip egg whites to a glossy, fluffy texture with the salt.
- Gradually add sugar while continuing to whip on low speed.
- Add Amaretto.
- Carefully fold in flours.
- On parchment lined cookie sheets, scoop 2 tbs portions of dough roughly 1 1/2 inches apart. Prepare two sheets at a time.
- Place one sheet of cookies on center rack and one on the bottom. Bake for 15 minutes, then switch the sheets. Bake for another 15 minutes.
- Remove baked cookies, by spatula, to cooling rack.
- Over a double boiler, melt both chocolates together until smooth.
- Match pairs of cookies by approximate size and shape. Then on the bottom of one cookie add approximately one teaspoon of chocolate and sandwich the cookies together.
- Let cookies and chocolate cool completely and serve. Will keep in an airtight container for a week.
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