Amaretto di Guarcino

Bring a small pan of water to the boil. Put the sweet almonds in one bowl and the bitter almonds in a small bowl of their own, cover both with the boiling water and leave them for 1 minute. Drain each bowl in turn in the sieve and pinch each almond between your fingers, so that it slips out of its skin. Pat them dry with the cloth, still in their two lots, and weigh out 190 g of the sweet almonds and 20 g of the bitter ones, to the gram.

Check Every almond is white all over, with no brown skin left, and the two lots weigh 190 g and 20 g.

Tip Our guide: the specification asks for peeled sweet almonds and does not say whether the bitter ones are peeled; this page peels both, as the home recipe among the variants does.

Tip Our guide: with almonds bought already peeled, peel only the bitter ones.

Tip Our guide: the bitter almonds are blanched and weighed on their own because, once peeled, they look like the sweet ones. Put any left over back in their packet, out of the reach of children.

Grind the sweet and the bitter almonds finely.

Check A fine, even powder, with no pieces of almond left and no sign of oil.

Tip Our guide: in the food processor, all the almonds with 2 tablespoons of the 195 g of sugar, in short pulses of a few seconds. Stop as soon as it is fine: ground too long, it clumps and turns oily.

Tip Safety, from the European Food Safety Authority: raw bitter almonds release cyanide quickly when chewed; at the highest level it has recorded, 0.1 g–1.4 g of them eaten at once, depending on body weight, reaches the acute reference dose, the safe amount for a single eating occasion: less than half a small almond for a toddler, one large almond for an adult. Each amaretto here is made with about 1.8 g of them. The authority gives no figure for bitter almonds once baked; it notes that heating lowers both the cyanide and the activity of the enzyme that releases it.

Tip Our guide: keep the bitter almonds away from children, and never taste the raw paste, which also holds raw egg white.

Knead the ground almonds together with the sugar and the egg white.

Check A soft, even, slightly sticky paste that holds its shape when pressed, with no dry powder left.

Tip Our guide: tip the ground almonds and the rest of the sugar into the large bowl and mix them. Break up the 95 g of egg white with a fork, without whipping it, pour it in and stir, then knead the paste with one hand in the bowl for 2–3 minutes.

Cut the wafer sheets into ovals about 9 cm long and 6 cm wide and lay them on the lined tray in three rows of four, one place left empty, their long sides across the width of the tray, about 1 cm apart.

Check 11 wafers on the tray, none touching.

Tip Our guide: the ovals are cut a little larger than the amaretti; what sticks out is trimmed after baking.

Portion the paste by hand straight onto the wafers, giving each piece the characteristic shape of a rounded lozenge, pressed between the index fingers with quick, simple movements. The wafers stay on the amaretti.

Check Weigh the first piece: about 45 g. Each is a rounded lozenge about 7 cm long, 4.5 cm wide and 2 cm high, centred on its wafer.

Tip Our guide: wet your fingers lightly in cold water so that the paste does not stick. Roll each piece into a ball, set it on a wafer, then press it from both sides between your index fingers to draw out the two points, and smooth the top.

Tip Our guide: baked, the specification wants 35 g–45 g, 6 cm–10 cm long, 4 cm–6 cm wide and 1 cm–2 cm thick; a piece of 45 g loses a little water in the oven and lands within it.

Cut away the wafer that sticks out beyond each amaretto with the small scissors. Keep them in a tin with a tight lid.

Check Each amaretto sits on its own wafer, with none showing round the edge.

Tip Our guide: an airtight tin keeps them soft; the specification's packs are sealed airtight too.