Ricciarelli - Italian Almond Biscuits

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 180°C. (A little lower if using fan forced)

Step 2: Line a baking tray with baking paper.

Step 3: Mix the almond meal and sugar together in a large bowl. Add the egg whites, lemon zest & almond extract and mix through to create a paste (I found using hands were the best doing this). Pinch off pieces of the paste and shape into 3 cm x 4 cm rectangles.

Step 4: NOTE: Try to shape your biscuits roughly the same size so they will cook evenly all over.

Step 5: Dust rectangles with the icing sugar to coat well, then place biscuits onto the lined tray, leaving room for spreading.

Step 6: Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the cookies look slightly marked and the bottom is firm.

Step 7: Cool on a rack. Let the biscuits cool completely before moving off the tray as they are quite soft straight out the oven, but when cool are the perfect texture and easier to manage.

Step 8: These biscuits keep for weeks in an airtight container, so you can doubling the batch will not be a problem!