Only Recipes, by Alessandra Zecchini ©

For these I used 200 g of almonds and 5 apricot kernels (enough to give the almonds a more distinctive flavour). If you like to know more about apricot kernels click  here . I blanched everything in boiling water for a couple of minutes and then I removed the skins. I placed the blanched almonds (and the blanched apricot kernels) in the food processor with 100 g of icing sugar. I processed the nuts but not into a 'flour', more like into a coarse mixture, like a crumble mixture. I stirred in one egg white (not need to beat it first, these are not amaretti biscuits), and then I shaped the 'fingers' with wet hands. More than baking, these biscuits need to 'dry', so I placed them in the fan oven at 180°C for 5 minutes, then I turned the oven off and let them dry until they were cold. To finished I melted some dark chocolate (72%) and dipped one side of the biscuits into it. Once the chocolate had set the 'fingers' were ready. P...

This is another recipe from my book Sweet As , and something that I love to make for Xmas. I would like to say that for marzipan you should get the best almonds around, natural, but here in New Zealand the almonds taste different from the ones in Italy. They are imported, not sure where from most of the time, but they are not top grade almonds. Still, with a few tips, you can make your marzipan taste great even with 'regular' almonds! Buy them natural, not blanched, you need to blanche then yourself or the result will be too dry. To blanch them you need to put them in boiling water for a couple of minutes, and then add cold water and take the skin off, one by one. For this recipe you will need: 200 g almonds 100 g icing sugar 5 apricot kernels. As I was saying before, the almond here have little taste, so I like to collect the stones from apricot and get the almonds out. They are a real pain to crack! In the photo above you can see apricot stones and kernels. The apricot kernel...