My Italian mother-in-law Maria (FYI 99% of Italian mothers-in-law are called Maria), makes a mighty fine biscuit. She generally has a batch of easy Italian biscuits coming out of the oven on any given day. And by ‘batch’ I mean around 200 biscotti. Marias don’t do small quantities.
My kids love her lemon-iced biscotti. A sweet, dense Italian biscuit made with vast quantities of lemon zest. These are the biscuits she makes the most and I will share the recipe soon. Just as soon as she lets me have it. 😉
My favourite easy Italian biscuits, though, are these ones. They are made with so many egg whites they are practically a meringue inside. You bite in through the crunch of the outside, into the soft, gooey inside and it’s just heaven. Then there’s literally a cherry on top to send you completely over the edge.
Psst, these ginger biscuits are really nice too.
The trick with these easy Italian biscuits is to pull them out of the oven the second they start to brown. Make your first tray your ‘tester’ tray as you’ll need to know your oven very well to get it right. I find mine are perfect if kept in my new oven for a few seconds after the timer goes off at 7 minutes. My old oven it was 9 minutes. You’ll really need to experiment.
Don’t fret if they crisp up a bit too much. You’ll still get a lovely Italian biscuit, but you might miss the slide from crisp to soft inside. And also try not to fret about the volume of sugar pouring into the mix. These are biscuits made occasionally as a treat.
One more thing: this is a ‘Nonna batch’ recipe. You can easily halve it if you’re not cooking for your suburb. I find that it’s nice to make the full batch and distribute them to friends and neighbours. They are always very well received!
Nonna-style easy Italian biscuits
Makes 60 biscuits
Takes 20 minutes
Bakes around 7 minutes
