The Recipe

Ingredients:

• For the Cookies (multiply by as many egg yolks as you have)
• Separated yolk of 1 egg
• 30g Caster Sugar
• 40g Ground almonds
• A few drops of Vanilla Extract
• To Finish
• Dark chocolate

Method:

Place the egg yolks in a bowl. You can use just about any number of yolks, multiplying the other ingredients as appropriate.

Preheat the oven to 130 C.

Unlike egg whites, no amount of whisking will stiffen or lighten the yolks on their own, so add the sugar and beat with an electric whisk.

When mixed with the sugar, the egg yolks will whip up to about twice their original volume and will turn pale yellow in colour.

Preheat the oven to 130 C. (These cookies can be baked alongside meringues in a fairly cool oven).

Add the ground almonds and vanilla, then use a spoon to fold them in until evenly mixed.

Use a gentle scooping action to try to preserve the lightness of the whipped yolks and sugar.

The mixture should form a soft, sticky ball of dough.

If the yolks were from very large eggs, you may need to add a little more ground almond to get the dough firm enough to handle.

Roll the dough into 2cm balls and space them about 4cm apart on a nonstick baking sheet.

For each yolk in the mixture, you'll get about 6 little cookies.

They will flatten a little in the oven, but they shouldn't spread too much.

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes if you want the cookies to be soft and chewy, or 15 minutes if you want them to be brittle and crumbly.

Allow them to cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Finish by dipping them halfway in melted chocolate and placing them on baking parchment to set.

Variations

Replace the ground almonds with fine semolina for a more crunchy end result.

Use almond essence instead of vanilla and the cookies will be similar to Amaretti.