Biscotti di Mandorla alla Siciliana

Avola/Palermo, Sicily

Sicily's soft almond cookies — made from Avola almonds ground with sugar to a fine paste, combined with egg whites to a sticky dough, rolled in powdered sugar, and baked until just set outside with a yielding, almost underbaked interior. The exterior crackles from the powdered sugar coating expanding; the interior remains moist and intensely almond-flavoured. The cookies should be eaten within 2 days — their soft interior is a mark of freshness. The most popular varieties include quaresimali (glazed with bitter cherry), reginelle (sesame-crusted), and coda di rospo (toad's tail — twisted with pistachio).

• Almond-sugar-egg white cookie baked to a crackled exterior and soft interior — French version is sandwiched; Sicilian is eaten whole → Macarons moelleux — soft almond-egg white cookies with chewy centre French
• Almond-based soft cookie — Spanish uses lard for richness; Sicilian uses egg white; both intend a moist interior → Mantecados de almendra — soft almond shortcakes from Andalusia for Christmas Spanish
• Almond and egg white cookie with crackled powdered sugar surface — same technique; German adds cinnamon; Sicilian stays pure almond → Makronen — almond and egg white cookie with crackled surface, traditional at Christmas German

Intensely sweet Avola almond; crackled powdered sugar exterior; moist-chewy interior; barely-baked freshness; quintessentially Sicilian