it's not too late to make these almond cookies for Christmas

Dec 22, 2023

A quick programming note: There will be no Grazing next week. I’m unable to take much time off my real job for the holidays, so to give myself some extra time around friends and family, I’m going to take a little newsletter vacation. I’ll be back in the New Year, with plenty to say about a feast of the seven fishes in South Philadelphia and a few days of gluttony in New Orleans.

Thank you all, as always, for reading. And happy holidays.

For so many people — me included — holiday cookies are a matter of tradition — which also implies repetition. I’m lucky my family’s dessert traditions are pretty phenomenal, but even so, I sometimes feel stuck. The muscle memory of Christmastime baking is comforting, but occasionally I want to mix in something new, to add my own entry into the canon of cookies each generation of women in my family has made and taught and shared.

Enter ricciarelli, a traditional Tuscan cookie I ate for the first time last year in Siena. Ricciarelli are by no means exclusively Christmas cookies, but last December, I realized served as a great contrast on my chocolate-forward dessert platter. Ricciarelli are almond-y and slightly citrus-y, with a thin, crispy shell and a chewy consistency inside. They’re light — or lighter than the average holiday fare — which means you’ll find yourself suddenly on your fourth cookie and still reaching for more.

I also consider these cookies an edible victory. You see, last fall, when my family was traveling in Italy, I was feeling destructively hangry while standing in the piazza outside the duomo in Siena. I spotted a bakery, practically sprinted inside and settled on a ricciarello each for me and my husband. After we inhaled our cookies in less than a minute, we turned right back around to buy more for my entire family. Our tour guide, Giuseppe, explained that we’d made a very good choice in the bakery; ricciarelli originated in Siena in the 14th century. But when Jesse suggested I try to replicate the cookies at home, Giuseppe (a very nice man!) delivered some attitude. “They’re very hard to make,” he told us, at which point he and Jesse engaged in a bit of a verbal spar over my baking abilities.

When we got home, I immediately looked up recipes, and I discovered that the Internet is rife with ricciarelli recipes. Dozens and dozens of those ad-infested, wordy cooking blogs have them, but there were other sources, too, some straight out of Italy. I began to experiment with different takes, and I soon realized there were about a dozen different distinctions. Some ricciarelli were made with only powdered sugar, some with a mix of powdered and granulated, still others with both sugars and a sugar syrup. Some included orange rind. Some called for almond flour, others for almond meal, others for whole almonds, blanched and food-processed. And some called for the cookies to be individually rolled into balls, while others instruct you to roll the dough into a log and slice the cookies from there.

Reader, I have made them all. And today, I give you my favorite version, which hews close to the more traditional Sienese recipes, but with a few twists. Are these cookies a little bit time-intensive? Yes, but most of the time is inactive. Are they also pretty darn simple to make? Actually, yes, I swear!

Sienese ricciarelli

adapted from many, many sources

active time: 40 minutes

total time: 1 hour, 40 minutes + an overnight rest for the dough

makes ~26 cookies

My take on ricciarelli uses a combination of finely chopped almonds and almond flour, which I think gives the cookies the proper density. I also am somewhat heavy-handed with the citrus zest, because a little bit extra zest is never a bad thing.

These cookies are so versatile. Serve them on a platter full of other cookies and cakes at a holiday, or dip them in your coffee on a Tuesday morning. (I’m a firm believer breakfast should have no rules.) Another perk: They’re gluten free without any added effort, so if you have any friends or family with an allergy, they’re a great way to make sure no one gets left out of dessert.

Fill a medium-sized saucepan with water and bring it to a boil. Prepare a colander. When the water has reached a rolling boil, add 200 grams of almonds and let them cook for about 1 minute, until most have floated to the surface of the water. Pour the almonds over the colander in the sink and immediately begin to stream cold water over the almonds for another minute, cooling them. (Alternately, you can just buy blanched almonds, though they’re harder to find and more expensive than just buying little guys still in their skins and doing the work yourself.)
Meanwhile, get out your food processor and add 330 grams of granulated sugar and 200 grams of almond flour to the bowl.
Set your oven to 120°F.
Peel the almonds; with a quick pinch, they should slide right out of their skins. Discard the skins, and spread the blanched almonds on a baking sheet in a single layer. Put them in the oven for 10-15 minutes, until they’ve dried but before they start to brown.
Pour the dried almonds directly into the food processor, put the lid on and pulse the mixture for about 30 seconds until the almonds are finely chopped and the mixture resembles sand.
In a small saucepan, combine 20 milliliters of water and 50 grams of granulated sugar. Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved and you have a clear syrup. This should take about 3 minutes, depending on how hot your stove runs.
Turn your food processor back on and, while it’s running, stream the sugar syrup into the sugar-almond mixture until it’s just combined. Scrape the resulting dough into a large bowl.
Sift together 50 grams of almond flour, 50 grams of powdered sugar and ½ of a teaspoon of baking powder. Stir that mixture into the dough, incorporating it fully. Cover the dough, which will be relatively dry, with a cloth overnight.
The next day, scrub 1 orange and then finely microplane the zest from the whole fruit. Set the zest aside.
Sift 50 grams of powdered sugar into a small bowl.
Place 3 large egg whites in the bowl of your stand mixer, fitted with a whisk attachment. Turn your mixer on medium-high, and whip the egg whites until a stiff peak forms. Once it has, add the orange zest and sifted powdered sugar, along with 2 teaspoons of almond extract, whipping the eggs after each addition until the new ingredient is just combined. The eggs will lose a bit of their stiffness. That’s okay.
Take the towel off of yesterday’s dough, and give it a stir with a spatula. Add the egg whites on top of the dough mixture, and use your spatula to combine it all. It will form a relatively sticky dough, which may still feel a bit crumbly. If it does, knead the dough with your hands until the egg whites and moisture are more uniformly incorporated.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, and place another ½ cup of so of powdered sugar in a small bowl. Begin to roll your dough into balls, keeping them relatively uniform with about a 1-inch diameter. Roll each ball in the powdered sugar and place it on the baking sheet. Using your hands, shape each ball into an oval — you’re aiming for something resembling a football shape, but flat. Spread the cookies out on your baking sheet; they will expand a bit, but not too much. I’ve found I can fit 15 or 16 on each standard half sheet.
Let the cookies rest for an hour, until they’ve formed a bit of a shell.
After an hour, set your oven to 325°F. While it heats, let the cookies rest a bit longer. You may notice they’re starting to form cracks. If you’d like, you can pinch each cookie slightly at the edges to emphasize the cracks even more; this is a purely aesthetic exercise.
Bake the cookies for 16 minutes, though you should begin to check them after about 12 minutes. The cookies should be puffed up and feel just solid to the touch, and you want to make sure you remove them from the oven before they start to brown. (They’ll firm up even more once they’re out of the oven.) Let the cookies rest for a minute or two, and then transfer them carefully to a wire rack.

Notes: When rolling the cookies into balls, I tend to wash my hands periodically with water. The more coated your hands get it dough remnants, the harder it is to roll the cookies.

Here’s another great thing about these cookies: They’re even better on Day 2 and still great on Day 3. So you can make them in advance of any party or holiday when you might want to serve them.

I know you know a baking enthusiast who’d want to try this recipe.