Deliciously authentic Dutch butter icing-filled almond meringue cookies covered in chocolate.
| Prep Time: | 40 mins |
| Cook Time: | 15 mins |
| Additional Time: | 1 hr 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 2 hrs 25 mins |
| Servings: | 12 |
| Yield: | 2 dozen cookies |
Ingredients
- 8 egg whites
- 1 ¾ cups white sugar
- 5 ¼ cups almond meal
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- zest from 1 lemon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 ½ tablespoons butter
- 1 ¼ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
Instructions
- Beat egg whites until foamy in a large glass or metal mixing bowl. Gradually add the white sugar, continuing to beat until stiff peaks form. Lift your beater or whisk straight up: the egg whites should form a sharp peak that holds its shape. Fold in the almond meal, cinnamon, lemon zest, and vanilla.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Transfer the meringue to a piping bag with a large plain tip (or a gallon-sized plastic zipper bag with the corner snipped off). Pipe the meringue into ladyfingers about 3 inches long. Set the pan aside and let the meringues dry at room temperature for 2 hours.
- Preheat an oven to 320 degrees F (160 degrees C).
- Bake the cookies on the middle oven rack until dried but not yet brown, 15 to 20 minutes. Allow them to cool completely.
- Make the filling by creaming the butter and confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Stir in the vanilla. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate in the top of a double boiler over just-barely simmering water, stirring frequently and scraping down the sides with a rubber spatula to avoid scorching.
- To assemble the cookies, spread buttercream on the back of a cookie, sandwich it together with another cookie, and dip both ends in the melted chocolate. Let the dipped cookies dry on waxed paper or parchment.
- Almond meal can be found in specialty stores and some supermarkets. One pound of almond meal yields about 4 3/4 cups. To make it yourself, grind 3 1/2 cups raw almonds with 1/2 cup of the white sugar in the recipe (the sugar helps give the nuts a finer grind). Proceed as directed.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 452 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 63 g |
| Cholesterol | 9 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 0 g |
| Protein | 23 g |
| Saturated Fat | 4 g |
| Sodium | 67 mg |
| Sugars | 42 g |
| Fat | 15 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Made this several times. The last one I did not sandwich it, just garnished the fingers with sliced almond then dip them in melted chocolate. Never fail to impress everybody.
I was wondering if you could do it with out the almond meal
Made it, but used marzipan between the strips of meringue—had meringue over from making a stollen. Worked alright. The biscuits are uneven in size and shape—it was a quick lesson in piping. Still had marzipan left—rolled that into about 15mm diameter rolls, covered them with what was left of the melted chocolate. Not pretty like storebought but taste OK! I have chickens, love custard/creme anglais, creme brulee so need plenty recipes to use up the eggwhites. This one is fine, bit of work but hey, I am retired, got the time in spades!
I have made these twice and this is a delicious cookie. They are unique in both flavor and in appearance. I ended up storing them in a pretty bowl wrapped in saran just so we could look at them. As can be read in the directions, these cookies take a long time to make. But it’s worth it. Also, when using the decorators bag to squeeze the almond meringue onto cookie sheets, don’t use a tip, just the coupler alone inside the bag to get a good size ladyfinger. The ladyfingers swell when cooking. Double the buttercream in order to have enough to use up all of the ladyfingers when assembling. I used the decorators bag with a large star tip which made assembly pretty quick. I also needed to more than double the chocolate in order to coat both tips of the entire batch…depending on how thick the chocolate coating is. The bottom line is, the effort is worth it. This yields a terrific cookie and I will make again.
Great recipe – easy to follow instructions.
I did not care for this.