These delicious grain-free hazelnut cookies, from the Piedmont region of Italy, are so very easy to make. Wonderfully crisp on the outside and soft and meringue-like on the inside they are quite irresistible. Don’t worry if they are not the prettiest biscuits you’ve ever made; the name actually translates to ‘ugly but good’ and they so are!
Italian Hazelnut Biscuits (Brutti ma Buoni)
Ingredients
- 200 grams (1 & 1/2 cups) hazelnuts
- 80 grams organic egg whites , from 2 large eggs
- 1 pinch salt
- 160 grams (1 cup) coconut sugar , or organic raw sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180C.
- Place whole hazelnuts on a baking tray and toast in oven for 10 minutes, until they are lightly golden and fragrant.
- Rub the hazelnuts in a clean tea towel to remove most of the skins. Let them cool completely.
- Pulse the hazelnuts in a food processor until they are coarsely chopped.
- Reduce oven temperature to 150C.
- Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until very stiff peaks form.
- Gently fold in nuts and the coconut sugar. Do this with a metal spoon in batches.
- Line 2 trays with baking paper and spoon heaped teaspoons of the cookie mixture onto the trays, leaving 3cm between each one.
- Bake for 30 minutes, until the biscuits are lightly golden. Let them cool on the trays.
Optional Ideas:
- For a chocolate-hazelnut flavour add 1 cup finely chopped dark chocolate.
- These biscuits would also be wonderful with pistachios or almonds instead of hazelnuts.
- Add 2 teaspoons of espresso coffee.
