A summery Bastille Day (France’s national holiday on the 14th of July) amaretti version with a whole candied cherry in the middle in which there is also a whole roasted hazelnut inside the candied cherry; yes, layered fillings !
The cookie dough is still as easy to make, with one part egg white + two parts sugar + three parts ground hazelnut powder, with extras like cherry extract, hazelnut extract, whole candied cherries and hazelnuts, making these amaretti slightly larger than my usual ones.
As I’ve said 3 times before, for my 3 other amaretti recipes (see the almond & citrus amaretti recipe here and see the chocolate & peanut amaretti recipe here and see the almond & rose & candied cherry recipe here), the secret is to make a meringue mixture first with the egg whites and sugar and then to add the extracts before combining the creamy and whipped meringue mixture with the hazelnut powder and you’ll end up with a firmer more uniform dough that you’ll chill and then roll into many smaller balls, but double the usual number to sandwich the fillings later between the flattened dough balls.
You’ll insert the roasted hazelnut inside the slitted or halved candied cherry (like inserting cherry pits back inside the cherries) and then flatten the 2 smaller balls of dough, to wrap them around the filling, then roll it all up and coat it with icing sugar and chill again before baking. Don’t forget to flatten them before baking, but only slightly, because of the filling.
Bake for 15 minutes in a not-too-hot oven and then let the outer crust slightly crisp up in a turned-off oven for another 15 minutes, as they gently cool, before removing them from the oven, to cool off completely.
By the way, this is version number 4 for my amaretti recipe repertoire, but I might come up with a new one for next year … :)
