While these macaroons aren’t as pretty as the French versions they’re certainly as tasty: lemony, almondy and chewy. I’m planning on serving them with coffee at the next breakfast club, but they’d also make a perfect mid-afternoon nibble. The only problem being that you can’t (or rather I couldn’t) stop at just one. If you can restrain yourself, they do keep extremely well (up to a week so far in a tupperware).

I came across the recipe on 101 Cookbooks, but I’ve adapted it below as her version calls for almond paste which I couldn’t buy that easily, so I’ve used ground almonds and some extra egg instead. Either way, they’re really easy to make, simply mix everything together into a dough, pinch off small pieces and roll into balls. My only word of warning is that the dough is very sticky, so make sure you dust the work surface with plenty of icing sugar and keep more on hand.

Limoncello macaroons

Makes 60

180g icing sugar, plus lots more for dusting
115g castersugar
225g ground almonds
1 egg, plus 1 egg whites
½ lemon, juice only
drop almond extract
1 tbsp limoncello
2 lemons, zest only

• Line two baking trays with greaseproof paper.
• Sift the icing sugar into a mixing bowl and stir in the caster sugar and ground almonds.
• Stir in the lemon juice, egg and egg white and almond extract to form a thick paste. Whisk with an electric whisk for 2-3 minutes, or until smooth and creamy.
• Stir in the limoncello and lemon zest and beat again for another minute.
• Tip the dough onto a work surface dusted generously with icing sugar, have more icing sugar on standby.
• Pinch off walnut-sized pieces of dough, dust in more icing sugar, roll into a ball and place onto the baking sheets.
• Repeat with the rest of the dough and place about 2cm apart on the baking trays.
• Let the macaroons sit while you preheat the oven to 180C.
• Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, or until pale golden-brown.
• Remove from the oven, transfer the baking trays to wire racks, and let cool completely.

Tags: almonds, lemon

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