Sour Cherry Amaretti

I’ve made a cookie with dried cranberries. I’ve made ricciarelli. Before this weekend, I’d never thought of combining the two ideas – sour dried fruit, soft almond biscuit – but the Ottolenghi book showed me differently. Sour Cherry Amaretti. The original separate biscuits were delicious, but when combined and altered slightly they become something even better.As you bite into these, you initially get the chewy outer edge of the cookie before the really soft, melt-in-the-mouth texture and intense almond flavour of the inside. Then you hit a chewy, tart sour cherry to stop the amaretti becoming too sickly and the two flavours work really well together.Making the amaretti uses a really similar technique to the ricciarelli and similar to macarons except you don’t have to worry about being really gentle as you fold the ground almonds into whisked stiff egg whites. There is also a twist in this recipe: you use your fingers to rub in lemon zest to the ground almonds and sugar mixture before you add it the to the egg whites. This really enhances the citrus flavour and means you can still taste it in the final product even with the other strong flavours competing, giving it a bit of freshness and zing. The result is extremely moreish and as they’re quite small it’s difficult to stop having just one more, then another, then another…
PS – hope you like the new blog design! Finally took the plunge and mixed things up after three and a half years of the same design.