Acetani — almond & orange cookies
I’ve just finished baking these and the house smells all toasty and gorgeous. They’re Italian cookies made from almond meal (ie flour) and orange zest, so are gluten-free, which is increasingly necessary these days, I find, with so many people having allergies.
I’m making them to take to a meeting at my former workplace. I love baking, but am watching my weight so I only bake when I can give the products away, and they won’t sit around at home, tempting me to nibble.
I do get to taste them before I take them away — it would be irresponsible not to — right? What if they tasted dreadful?
I’ve made acetani before and they were very tasty. Not crispy, but slightly chewy, in a good way. The orange zest gives a lovely hint of flavor, but doesn’t dominate. I’m going to try making them with lemon zest later. Also maybe some lemon curd with the leftover yolks.
They’re also very easy to make. The crackle effect is made by rolling balls of the mixture in icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar) and the balls spread in the baking to become cookies and it makes the cracks.
I used this recipe (click on the link) which has very good instructions with photos. And what you see in the photo is about half the batch — the rest is still cooling down before I can slide them onto the wire rack. I think the recipe made around 25—30.
Ooh yum! They look so good, Anne. I’ve added the recipe to my recipe files. Like you, I love baking and like you I need to watch my weight so I also only bake to give away. Our church has a cake stall on the first Saturday of each month and I generally take along a couple of cakes and some slices but we rarely have gluten free offerings. These Re sure to be popular, though, of course, I’ll need to make sure before packing them up.
Yes, of course, Shelagh, you MUST do the taste test beforehand — anything else would be irresponsible. <g>