Almond Fingers (ditti di mandorle)

Okay – shhh…don’t tell anyone, but I forgot to post this last night, so my last day of February entry will be post dated. Anyway though, I was in a minor baking frenzy yesterday and thought I would return to Dolce Italiano for inspiration for last night’s dessert. I had found almond flour a while ago in a local market, so decided to make the Almond Fingers.

Almond Fingers photo by Becky

The dough came together easily enough but then it had to chill for an hour. You work in three separate batches (leaving the remaining batches in the fridge while you work). Now I’m not sure why, but while the dough wasn’t crumbly, it did sort of “separate” as I rolled it into a 1/2″ rope as the instructions said (think like gnocchi – well at least the way I make gnocchi). So some extra pinching and prodding was required but it worked in the end.

Another note, the recipe calls or one egg white and 2 cups of sliced blanched almonds, to make about 4 dozen cookies. Maybe my measurements were off, but I got about 59 cookies (so 11 extra – not that I’m complaining mind you), but I did run out of almonds and egg white. Of course, this pleased Sammi to no end because it allowed her to have cookies sans almonds, which she (and her friend) preferred.
The only other thing to note, the baking time was 14 – 16 minutes – at 16 minutes I wasn’t sure if they were done, so I left the first group in longer – but 16 minutes would have definitely sufficed, even though they were soft to the touch when I removed them from the oven, the stiffened nicely as they cooled on the cookie sheet and later on the cooling rack, to give a nice firm outside with a soft inside.

Everyone gave them a thumbs up, though they didn’t replace our favorites (lemony semolina for Becky and Sammi, Polenta cookies for Chris, and the Chocolate hazelnut for me). They were more work than the others, so given all that, I’ll probably save these for special occasions.

Oh, almost forgot, three more things, Chris says they’re fabulous with his after dinner sambuca. They come in at 2 WW points each and I didn’t have blanched sliced almonds so I used regular sliced which affects the look but I doubt the taste (after all they were good)!