In short. Castagnelle are hard little almond biscuits from Puglia, spiced with clove and cinnamon, baked pale and then dipped in dark chocolate. They keep for a long time — they were made to.
The name suggests chestnuts, but there are none in them: it comes from the size and the colour of the finished nuggets. What is in them is almonds, and a lot of them.
Ingredients
- 500 g of almonds
- 500 g of flour
- 500 g of sugar
- 15 g of baker’s ammonia (about one teaspoon)
- grated lemon zest, about half a teaspoon
- a pinch of ground clove and half a teaspoon of cinnamon
- dark chocolate, enough to coat them
Method
1. The almonds. Blanch, toast and finely chop them.
2. The dough. Add the almonds to the flour, sugar, clove, lemon zest and cinnamon. Mix well with a little water into which you have stirred the ammonia. The dough should be quite firm.
3. Shaping. Roll into long, thick sausages and cut them into nuggets of a good size — around 3–4 cm.
4. Baking. Place on a baking sheet and bake until they are a very pale golden colour. They should not brown.
5. Finishing. Melt the chocolate with a little sugar and dip the baked castagnelle one by one. Leave them to dry.
About the ammonia. Baker’s ammonia — ammoniaca per dolci — is the traditional raising agent for hard biscuits like these, and it is what makes them snap rather than crumble. It smells sharp in the oven and the smell disappears completely as they cool.
More Apulian sweets on the desserts page, and the whole tradition in our Apulian recipes.
