Chewy Amaretti Biscuit

These Chewy Amaretti Biscuits are a healthier take on the traditional Italian amaretti, and are made with just 5 simple ingredients.  They are naturally sweetened which means they contain no sugar, and are perfect with a cup of coffee in the morning or as an after dinner treat.

They're also naturally gluten free and dairy free and so simple to make.  Firm on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. 

Why Make This Recipe

• You only need 5 ingredients, and they are so easy to make
• You can eat a generous amount of these without getting a sugar high
•  Instead of vanilla to flavour the biscuits, you can swap out with your favourite liqueur, or almond essence
• They have a lovely texture thanks to the ground almonds
• They're higher in protein and fibre than other store bought biscuits, so are a healthier snack option

Ingredients

The Sweetener

This is the sweetener I use to roll/dust the biscuits in. Its like icing sugar or powdered sugar, but its an all natural sugar free sweetener

This recipe makes around 20 cute bite sized Amaretti Biscuits. Its easy to make more by doubling or trippling the recipe.

Ingredient Notes

1. Sweetener:  In the biscuit dough, I used Lakanto Monkfruit Sweetener "Classic".  This is a granulated sweetener that measures just like sugar and is available from Woolworths and Coles in Australia and from amazon worldwide.  Alternatively, you could use any brand of monkfruit, or stevia so long as it measures like sugar.
2. Flavouring: instead of 1 ½ teaspoons of vanilla essence, you can do 1 teaspoon of Almond essence, and ½ a teaspoon of Vanilla essence.
3. Powdered sweetener dusting on top:  Whilst not essential, it does add a little extra sweetness to the biscuit.  I use Lakanto superfine sweetener caster sugar replacement, also available from Woolworths in Australia.

How to Make This Recipe

1. Preheat fan oven to 180 degrees C, or 360 degrees F.
2. Add all ingredients into a food processor and blitz until a dough is formed

3. Remove dough from food processor and roll into a ball. Pull apart into 4 equal portions. 
4. From each of the 4 portions, roll out so that you have around 20 balls in total. Dust with the powdered sweetener.
5. Prepare a large baking tray, lined with parchment/baking paper
6. Arrange the balls on the baking tray and gently flatten each one into a round disc about ½ cm thick.

3. Bake: Bake in a fan oven at 180 degrees C, or 360 degrees F for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, cover and let come to room temperature.
4. Dust: Lightly dust with powdered sweetener
5. Store: Store in an air tight container at room temperature for 5 days.

Recipe Tips

• Almond Meal Vs Almond Flour:  Its best to buy store bought Almond Meal/Ground Almonds for this recipe.  That way you can rest assured that the texture will be on point.  If you're in the US, make sure to buy the more coarser Blanched Almond Flour, and NOT the fine powdered Almond Flour.  The texture of the two are completely different and you'll get an entirely different things altogether if you use the fine powdered Blanched Almond Flour to make Chewy Amaretti Biscuits.
• Egg Whites:  Fresh egg whites are best for this recipe, and you'll need 2 large eggs - the 2 whites, and 1 yolk.  You'll end up with 1 leftover egg yolk that you can do something else with.
• Cookies not sweet enough:  This can be easily remedied by sprinkling extra powdered sweetener over the cookies after they have cooked and cooled.  The easiest way to do this is to use a strainer to dust the sweetener over.
• Powdered Sweetener:  if you can't find powdered sweetener, you can make your own by grinding granulated sweetener either in a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle

These Healthier Amaretti Biscuits are great for novice bakers.  There's no whipping of egg whites.  Instead just pop everything into a food processor and let the magic happen.  Let the ingredients work their way into a dough ball and then the fun begins.  Breaking it up into balls to create the perfect bite sized sugar free Almond biscuit.

More Sugar Free Cookies and Biscuits

• Healthy Chickpea Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Chunky Peanut Butter and Date Cookies
• Almond Flour Peanut Butter Cookies
• Sugar Free Ginger Oatmeal Cookies
• Healthy Anzac Biscuits