Sicilian Almond pastries

These traditional Sicilian pastries are very popular throughout Italy. 

Growing up, these have always been one of my favorite sweets that can be found in pastry shops, and it’s surprising how simple they are to make and that they only need a few ingredients.

They are in the family of “marzipan” or “almond paste.” Almond paste was also called “royal paste” because it’s so good it deserves to be eaten by the King.

They are famous for being very soft and moist on the inside and just a little crunchier on the outside.

The ingredients used are almonds, honey, sugar, egg whites, and a small amount of almond extract. That’s it!

They are gluten and dairy free.

They are usually decorated with powdered sugar, and on top you can find candied cherries, jam, almonds, or pieces of candied orange peels.

Sometimes, orange or lemon zest are added for a different flavor.

Sicily is a warm and beautiful place and it’s rich in the productions of citrus fruits, figs, pumpkins, pistachios, and almonds.

Because Sicily produces more than half of Italian almonds, it made it possible for the bakers to come up with a good recipe and to produce a large quantity of these delicious pastries.

There are 3 kinds of almonds that can be found in Sicily.

Sweet, bitter and apricot kernels, called armelline almonds.

 Moderate amounts of bitter and armelline almonds are used a lot by pastry chefs; in fact, they are used to flavor marzipan, amaretti and other products.

This almond paste is used in a lot of other pastries in Sicily, like the cassata, the rollo’ of Caltanissetta, the Marzipan Easter lamb, and the martorana fruits.

The martorana fruits are very famous . 

They are sweets made of marzipan (but sweeter and tastier).

 They are a real piece of art because they resemble small colorful fruits in an exact and refined way.

 Sometimes they also resemble fish and vegetables, and nowadays they make them look like modern food, such as toast, hotdogs, etc.

All these almond-based pastries have the same origin.

The first people that mixed nuts with sugar and spices were the Arabians in the 6th century. 

They brought it to Sicily.

After centuries, almond pastries originated in 1100 in a Palermitan Martorana convent, connected to the Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio church.

There are two different legends.

The first one says that the nuns of the convent grew a beautiful garden. The bishop or pope, knowing they had a beautiful garden, decided to go see it.

Because it was winter, he couldn’t really see the beauty of it, so the nuns decided to create colorful marzipan fruits in order to decorate the garden.

The second legend continues to influence people even today.

In the convent, there was “la ruota degli esposti” (the wheels of the exhibits), where orphaned kids were left to the nuns, so that they could take care of them.

The founder of that convent, Eloisa Martorana, came up with a new sweet in the shape of colorful fruits to give to the kids that behaved well. When she died, the other nuns decided to keep this tradition alive, and on the morning of November 2nd the kids always woke up with a basket of marzipan fruits near their bed.

In Sicily, November 2nd is the day of the dead. On this day, kids wake up to see the marzipan fruits, a tradition which was passed down by their ancestors.

They are also called morticeddi, a word similar to the word “dead” in the Italian language, because they look like the fake fruits that were put in the tombs in the past, like the ones seen in the National Museum of Magna Grecia.

Sicilian Almond Pastries

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Ingredients

  

• 4 cups Almond flour (500 g)
• 1¼ cups sugar (250 g)
• 1 ¼ cups powdered sugar (250 g)
• ¾ cup egg white (150g)
• 2 tbsp honey (45 g)
• 1 tbsp almond extract

Instructions

 

• Put the almond flour, cane sugar and powder sugar in a bowl and ms
  
• Add the almond extract, the egg whites, and the honey and stir.
  
• Knead the dough with your hands until it becomes smooth
  
• Let the dough rest in a cool place for 4 or 5 hrs.

  You can also let the dough rest only for 20 min, but when you will bake the pastries they will loose their shape.
• Preheat the oven at 405°F
• Grab little pieces of dough and make little balls or different shapes.
  
• Roll each cookie in a container full of powder sugar.

  You can add decorations like almonds, cherries (I put one half cherry on each cookie), jem, pieces of pistacious, or candied orange peels.
  
• Bake the pastries for 10 or 11 min maximum.

  They will look very soft and not ready, but after letting them cool they will be crunchier on the ouside and very soft on the inside. Don't touch them becasue when hot, they will break. If you bake them longer they will look and taste different.