Amaretti

Not to be confused with amore.

Amaro means bitter. So unless you're planning on some kind of bittersweet romance (bitter almonds contain hydrogen cyanide) I recommend not confusing love and poison.

Amaretti cookies are named for the almond flavouring in them. Amaretto liqueur works well for this, but if you don't have any around you can easily replace it with a bit of almond extract. Amaretto is made from almonds and the pits of apricots (if you've never tasted them, I recommend it, the flavour is very reminiscent of an almond but has a very bitter note to it) and has a slight amount of bitterness under all that sugar, hence the name. But for the most part, it's a sticky sweet liqueur that works very well as a cough supressant.

Pardon me while I deal with the lingering cough I've had for the last few weeks:

It even tastes like most cherry flavoured cough syrups because "cherry" seems to have been conflated with "maraschino" which is a liqueur made from cherry pits and has same bitter sweet flavour that the apricot pits and almonds do.

I will now stop geeking on food research and start telling you how to make cookies.

Amaretti Cookies

What you need:

• 1 c almond butter
• 1 c sugar
• 1 tsp amaretto liqueur or almond extract
• another 1 c sugar
• 2 egg whites

What you gotta do:

Most amaretti recipes call for something called "almond paste". It's basically ground almonds with sugar added to it. Yes, they're usually blanched almonds and so the colour is quite pale, but if you don't have almond paste, and couldn't be bothered to blanch almonds, a good quality almond butter works just fine.

You will have to stir it though.

The first thing we're going to do is make our version of an almond paste. Put the almond butter and 1 cup of sugar into the food processor. 

I can't really think of any other way to do this than in a food processor. Besides, everything else just gets added to it. This is all the dishes you'll have to wash.

You will end up with something crumbly and pasty and lush with beautiful almond oil. I love almond oil and use it on my skin and hair in the shower when I need extra moisturizing.

You should end up with just over a cup of almond paste.

Back into the food processor it goes, along with the amaretto, the rest of the sugar and the egg whites.

If you've never separated eggs before, you can check out my three-way method to separate eggs. It's pretty foolproof. Even I can manage it.

And the food processor goes back on high until you have a lovely smooth goo. Give it at least 3 minutes, but as many as 5.

Now, those of you who are familiar with beating egg whites are thinking I'm insane. Yes, oil of any kind will kill the beating of egg whites and they won't get all nice and fluffy.

Nice and fluffy is not what we're going for here. This is a bittersweet romance, remember?

And so when you spoon your cookie batter (about a teaspoon at a time) onto a parchment lined cookie sheet...

Fuck. Preheat the oven. 375 degrees. (one of these days I'll learn)

...The blobs will spread quite a bit, but they will reach their maximum and you'll have a sheet full of flat, glossy puddles.

But after about 15 minutes in the oven....

poof!

The puddles rise and crack and lose their glossy sheen.

Give them some time to rest on the cookie sheet before you try removing them, or you'll lose the bottoms. I'm impatient; cookies laff at me. 

These have a lovely bit of crunch on the outside and a gooey, chewy, marshmallowy inside. They're a nice light snacky cookie, but they also lend themselves well to being served on the side of other desserts (like grilled or roasted fruits) or as ingredients in other things (cheesecake crust, or a chocolate terrine).

 What's your favourite bittersweet romance story?

Carroty Carrot Muffins

One of these days I'll figure out wake up early enough in the morning that I can actually sit down and eat a piece of toast for breakfast. I've never been much of a breakfast person though. This is not to say tht I don't like breakfast foods, or don't eat breakfast. It's just that I need to be up and about for a while before I eat something.

Sleep is a precious commodity in my world. I will take sleep over most other early morning activities. That's why I've got my morning routine down to a 17 minute science. Really sucks on days when the the overnight low was below -20 (i.e. every night from now until April) because I have to get up four minutes earlier to run out in my pajamas to start the car before I start getting ready. And there are still mornings when I'm ready to go before the car is. 2 more years of school. 2 more years. 2 more. 2 ...

Carroty Carrot Muffins

What You Need:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup ground flax seed

• OR 2 cups flour

• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp allspice
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c carrot juice (or orange juice or milk)
• 1/2 c vegetable oil (I used peanut)
• 1/2 c unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 c honey
• 1 1/2 c grated carrots (at least)

Nope, no sugar at all. And no dairy. These will never be entirley vegan though (even if you did use some kind of egg substitute) because of the honey. Poor little worker bees, working so hard.

What You Gotta Do:

Preheat the oven to 350. (and yes, I really did remember)

In a small bowl, combine the flour, flax seed, baking soda, baking powder, and the salt.

A whisk works well for this.

In a large bowl, dump in everything else except the carrots.

Whisk this all together. The spices really contribute to the colour.

Tip the floury stuff from the small bowl into the wet eggy stuff in the large bowl. Mix this with a whisk. Yes, I know I'm making muffins which only need to be just-mixed. It is possible to merely stir things with a whisk.

What you can't do with a whisk really, though I suppose if you really wanted to you could probably pull it off, is fold. Fold the grated carrots into your just-mixed batter.

The balance of my bag of baby carrots only made for about 2 cups of grated carrots. This recipe can definitely take more than that.

You should end up with enough batter to generously fill 12 muffin cups. (I think I may try this as a snack cake next time. The texture is soft and cake like.)

Bake them for about 20 minutes at 350. Then let them cool a bit before you try taking them out of the pan. If you use the paper cups, you can get them out right away, but I prefer my muffins without cups.

These are fabulous with a bit of cream cheese on them.

This recipe is decidedly not sweet, but it's also not savoury. You could add chocolate chips, dried fruit (I'm thinking chopped apricots would be very tasty in them), or even nuts (weirdo).

You could probably even top them with cream cheese icing and pass them off as a carrot cake. Sneaky.

How do you hide vgetables?