passover week 2016 - apricot and orange amaretti

passover week 2016 - apricot and orange amaretti

• 11 Apr 2016

Welcome to Passover Week 2016. I'm hoping to share 6 or 7 recipes with you this year. Expect a mixture of biscuits, cakes and pastries this year and if you suffer from nut allergies I've managed to include one or two recipes that are nut free.



I wasn't planning to post the recipes this week but looking at my stats, lots of people have already clicked onto my passover lemon squares recipe so I thought I'd post my passover recipes a week earlier. There's a small catch though - I've not finished my baking yet. There was a bit of a hiccup last weekend, when one of the cakes I baked crumbled when I turned it out. I took the crumbled cake into work and it tasted delicious so it's worth remaking. Then I found an Ottolenghi recipe I'd like to adapt so thank heavens I have a day off on Friday followed by the weekend! 




Here's the first recipe for apricot and orange amaretti. These little cookies are a riff on the sour cherry amaretti I made last year. The amaretti are coated in icing sugar before baking but icing sugar isn't kosher for Passover. You can't buy Passover icing sugar in Sydney so I made some at home by whizzing up caster sugar in the food processor with some potato flour.  



They're quick and easy to make and filled with flavour. Here's the recipe for you. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. 

Apricot and Orange Amaretti - makes 24
Ingredients
220g ground almonds
100g caster sugar
Grated zest of one orange
Pinch of salt
80g dried apricots, roughly chopped
2 egg whites
2 tsp honey
Caster sugar or passover icing sugar for rolling
60g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

Heat the oven to 180°C, conventional. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Set to one side

Mix the ground almonds, sugar, orange rind and salt in a large bowl with your fingertips. Add the apricots and set aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until they reach a soft meringue consistency. Add the honey and whisk until firm. Gently fold into the almond mixture until it forms a soft paste. Using a tablespoon, form the mixture into 24 small logs or irregular shapes then roll in icing sugar. 

Arrange on the baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake for about 10-12 minutes in the preheated 180°C, conventional oven, or until they have slightly coloured but still remain relatively pale and chewy in the centre. Remove to a wire rack and cool before decorating with the melted chocolate.

Place the chocolate into a small bowl and microwave in 30 second bursts on high until melted. Drizzle or pipe the melted chocolate over the cooled amaretti. When the chocolate is dry to the touch, store in a sealed jar or tin.



I made these 2 weeks ago and I've already eaten this batch so I made another batch during the weekend. I was a bit pushed for time and wondered how the amaretti would turn out if I skipped the 'beating the egg whites to a soft meringue' stage. Instead l just mixed the egg white and honey together until the honey dissolved and poured the egg white mixture over the dry ingredients. I mixed it into a paste and it worked like a charm!

I'll be back again tomorrow with day 2 of Passover Week so see you all then.

Bye for now,

Jillian