I pulled Pignoli Cookies from the cookbook jar, and this one turned out to be the easiest bake yet. Made with just a handful of ingredients; almond flour, egg whites, sugar, lemon zest, and pine nuts; these Italian cookies are soft, chewy, and subtly sweet. The pine nuts add a nutty richness and a beautiful golden finish.
The texture reminded me a little of macarons, but without all the fuss. If you’re looking for a simple yet satisfying bake, this is a cozy afternoon project worth trying.
🎥 Trust the Process is a cozy baking series where I make a recipe at random from a cookbook and share the results, no matter how it turns out.
Cookbook: Delectable by Claudia Fleming @
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I’m Kimberly a self taught baker each week I pull a number from a jar and bake the recipe waiting on that page no planning no previews just trust the recipe I pulled today is pignoli cookies I’ve heard of these cookies before but I’ve never tried them or tried to bake them looking at the ingredients there’s only a few which is a very nice welcome change considering that the last episode I had about 15 ingredients all I need are egg whites sugar almond flour lemon zest salt pine nuts I don’t have pine nuts I have to run to the grocery store to get the pine nuts so I’m going to do that and then I’ll be back and finish prepping the rest of the ingredients and the Pine Nuts all of my ingredients are prepped and ready to go now it’s time for me to uncover the instructions so I can see how to make these cookies I have to preheat the oven to 3:50 and I’m using a stand mixer to whip the egg whites until they’re foamy and then gradually add the sugar while it continues to whip until the whites are stiff then in another bowl I’m mixing the almond flour zest and salt and folding it gently into the whites then we’re forming the dough into balls and dropping it into the pine nuts and they’ll be turned to coat evenly so the whole cookie will be covered in pine nuts and they bake for about five minutes actually they bake for a little bit more than five minutes my guess is maybe 10 I’m not really sure she doesn’t specify the total amount and they cool on a wire rack and we dust them with confectioner sugar at the end and that’s it that’s pretty quick I’m gonna get started right away so I can try these cookies they sound amazing the pugnoli cookies are out of the oven they have cooled and I am so ready to give these a try I’m interested to see how the pine nuts taste I’ve never had pine nuts before in a dessert the only time I’ve ever tried pine nuts was in pesto they smell really good they smell like nuts like almonds and just toasted nuts I wasn’t really expecting anything from these cause I’ve never had pignoli’s before so I’m actually kind of excited to give these a try oh these are soft and the inside looks like a normal cookie it smells it smells like almonds and a lot of the pine nuts are falling off as I’m trying to break a piece off mmm so the pine nuts are soft and I thought toasting them they would kind of act like other nuts and get crunchy and toasty but they’re soft and toasty the texture of the cookie is very soft it kind of reminds me of macarons a little bit that makes sense because macarons are made with egg whites sugar and almond flour but these don’t have that crunch like macarons do not really the lemon zest in here is very interesting it brightened up the flavor of the cookies if the author just relied solely on the toasty pine nuts and the almond flour for flavor I think it would have been a little bit boring honestly the lemon zest in this really brightens up the cookie and it adds an interesting dimension to the flavor the amount of time it took to bake it was probably around 15 minutes the author didn’t really specify exactly how much time I just baked these until the pine nuts were a nice toasty brown color but the cookie itself doesn’t get any more color than what you see here this cookie would probably taste really good with a cup of coffee the rich toasty nutty flavor combined with just a nice cup of coffee I think would go really great together I just had another bite and the lemon and almond together it’s so nostalgic I know I’ve had that flavor combination before and I cannot place it it’s so good this is one of the easier recipes in this cookbook and I would 100% make this again it’s so fast to come together if I weren’t filming it would probably take me maybe 20 minutes from start to finish not including bake time so I would definitely recommend trying this recipe there are a few really good solid recipes in this cookbook that I would definitely come back to pine nuts are a pantry staple now because of this recipe I would definitely come back to making this over and over again if I had to rate this recipe I would give it a 10 out of ten thank you for trusting the process with me if you’d like to bake along you can find the cookbook in the caption below don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss any episodes take care and I’ll see you next time