Nobody visiting Siena could possibly miss the piles of ricciarelli proudly stacked on bakery windows around the city. Typically a biscuit baked and given as a present for Christmas, it can now be found all over Tuscany throughout the year. Ricciarelli are simple and delicious almond cookies, unmistakably shaped as a rice grain and always coated with a thick layer of icing sugar.
As per most traditional Italian bakes, there are as many variations to the ricciarelli recipe as there are families in Siena, nevertheless, one of the best documented mentions of this biscuit in the 19th century stipulates that no flour should be used, making this recipe inherently gluten-free. Orange and almond are a flavour marriage made in heaven, so ramping up the orange zest content or using some lemon zest too, although possibly not authentic, works very well.
The recipe is very simple, but the two slots of resting time are critical to success: chilling the dough overnight will make it more manageable when shaping the biscuits, while leaving the shaped ricciarelli to dry before baking ensures the typical cracked surface.
The relatively sticky dough might make shaping fiddly, so I recommend using lots of icing sugar when handling the biscuits to make the job easier.
The biggest mistake when making ricciarelli is to over-bake them: the centre of the biscuit should remain soft and gooey, so take them out of the oven as soon as the pointed edges start to become golden.
These biscuits go traditionally well with vin santo, coffee or hot chocolate; personally I prefer to cut through the sweetness with a chilled glass of extra-dry prosecco.
