Flourless Soft Almond Cookies (Pasticcini di Mandorle) can be soft like marzipan or baked a few minutes more for a slightly crunchy chew. Made with only 4 ingredients, these delicious cookies are naturally gluten free and ideal for Passover or Easter sweetness.
Why you'll love this recipe
When it comes to dunkable, dip-able, cookies with amazingly long shelf life, Italian cookies win the prize. Perhaps this is due to espresso being so much a part of the Italian culture and the obvious need for a cookie to go along side.
Perhaps Italian bakers are just genius. From biscotti to taralli dolce di pasqua (Italian Easter Cookies) to these soft almond cookies, Italian cookies are what your cookie jar and care packages should be filled with.
Flourless Soft Almond Cookies may be the easiest cookie you ever make. There are only four ingredients; almond flour, confectioners’ sugar, lemon zest, and eggs.
There is no mixer required. Just combine the ingredients, roll in confectioners’ sugar, bake, and enjoy. The naturally gluten free, grain free ingredients, make this almond cookie recipe a lovely Passover or Easter treat.
Also try Almond Flour Chocolate Cookies. These cookies are a chocolate version of Soft Almond Cookies! They're also a gluten free, one bowl recipe that you won't want to miss.
Mandorle are definitely eye catching without any decorating. Should you want to add a bit of spring color, here's an easy way to color the confectioners’ sugar.
Color Kitchen sells little packets of all natural food coloring powder. I bought mine at Whole Foods.
The packets come in red, yellow, and blue, which can be combined to create all the colors of the rainbow. Mixing the powder in a small plastic bag with the confectioners’ sugar colors the sugar in soft pastel hues.
Instructions
This is an overview of the instructions. The full instructions are in the recipe card below.
- In a large mixing bowl, mix together the almond flour, confectioners’ sugar, and lemon zest. Add the beaten eggs. Mix until combined and dough forms.
- Put ½ cup of confectioners’ sugar in a small separate bowl. Optional: For colored confectioners’ sugar, divide evenly into three ziplock bags. Add ¼ teaspoon of powdered coloring and knead bag until the sugar is evenly colored. Add additional powder in ¼ teaspoon increments until desired color is achieved.
- Scoop dough into slightly rounded 1 tablespoon portions. Roll to coat the dough ball in the confectioners’ sugar. Roll in palm, over the sugar bowl, to form a ball and to remove excess sugar.
- Place cookie balls 2” apart on a parchment lined baking sheet. With a finger, make a small indentation in the middle of each cookie to promote even baking. Bake at 350 degrees F, for 11-12 minutes for soft cookies or 14-15 minutes for slightly crunchy-chewy cookies.
Storage
Store soft almond cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one month.
More Italian cookie recipes
Italian Butter Cookies are melt in your mouth cookies with just a bit of crunch. The soft, buttery dough can be piped, used in a cookie press, or rolled into balls.
Taralli Cookies are Italian Easter Cookies, a lightly sweet cookie with a crunchy sugar icing flavored with citrus. So good with a cup of tea or coffee.
Italian Chocolate Cookies have a soft, cake-like texture and a crunchy vanilla icing. Enjoy them with added chocolate chips or chocolate covered raisins.
Biscotti, the most well known Italian dipping and munching cookie, come in many flavors. Take your pick of chocolate espresso biscotti, lemon biscotti, chocolate chip biscotti, or chocolate mint biscotti!
My experience with this recipe
There are rarely any Monday Box recipes that use nuts. I am extremely allergic to tree nuts and can’t even bake with them.
Almonds are a partial exception for me. I can’t eat them, but it doesn’t bother me to bake with them. That said, in order to evaluate the flavor of Flourless Soft Almond Cookies, I had to rely on the reactions and comments of my taste testers.
I can’t tell you first hand that these cookies live up to the rave reviews I read while researching. However, I can tell you that no one I gave them to stopped at one cookie. Two or three cookies into their “taste testing”, each person was still smiling, munching, and muttering some version of, “Mmmmm,” while reaching for another.
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Flourless Soft Almond Cookies (Pasticcini di Mandorle)
Ingredients
- 3 ¼ cups almond flour
- 2 cups confectioners’ sugar plus about ½ cup for coating
- Zest from 1 lemon
- 2 large eggs lightly beaten
- Optional for colored sugar coating:
- 3 packages of Color Kitchen powdered natural food coloring red, blue, yellow
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350° F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, mix together the almond flour, confectioners’ sugar, and lemon zest.
- Add the beaten eggs. Mix until combined and dough forms.
- Put ½ cup of confectioners’ sugar in a small bowl.
- Optional: For colored confectioners’ sugar, divide evenly into three ziplock bags. Add ¼ teaspoon of powdered coloring and knead bag until the sugar is evenly colored. Add additional powder in ¼ teaspoon increments until desired color is achieved. (Combine primary colors to create additional shades. Red and blue were combined for the purple coloring.)
- Scoop cookie dough into slightly rounded 1 tablespoon portions. Roll to coat in the confectioners’ sugar. Roll in palm, over the sugar bowl, to form a ball and to remove excess sugar.
- Place 2” apart on the prepared cookie sheet. With a finger, make a small indentation in the middle of each cookie to promote even baking.
- Bake for 11-12 minutes for soft, marzipan-like cookies or 14-15 minutes for slightly crunchy-chewy cookies.
- Remove from the oven and move the cookies onto a wire rack to cool completely.
- Store baked cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one month.
Notes
- Almond flour is made from blanched almonds and is very finely ground. Substituting almond meal, made from raw almonds with a coarse grind, will not produce the same results.
- For more intense almond flavor, add ½-1 teaspoon of almond extract.
- Wrap pairs of cookies, bottoms together, in plastic wrap.
- Stack the wrapped bundles in a freezer weight ziplock bag.
- To use a plastic storage container, layer cookies between sheets of wax paper. Add crumpled tissue paper between the cookie and the lid, if necessary, to prevent ANY movement while shipping.
Nutrition
First Published: March 14, 2018. Last Updated: February 18, 2022. Updated for additional information and better reader experience.
Sue costello
Easiest Italian almond cookie ever and it is so soft chewy and delish.. only charge made was to add a tsp of almond extract
sj
very good. I added shredded unsweetened coconut and slivered almonds. they took much longer to cook- at least 20 minutes in my opinion. I patted them in my hand to make a fairly flat cookie.