Ingredients for 25 – 30 biscuits:200 g almonds150 g hazelnuts150 g walnuts150 g cane sugar3 egg white45 g candied orange peel½ tsp cocoa powder½ tsp cinnamon½ tsp nutmeg½ tsp cloves1 pinch of pepper icing sugar
Chop the almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts coarsely (make sure the pieces are neither too large nor too small). You can use a food processor or do a bit of “exercise”: put the nuts in a food grade bag, close it and place it on a wooden chopping board. Crush the bag by moving your rolling pin forwards and backwards over it (…putting all your weight into it if necessary). Put the chopped nuts to one side.
Now take the eggs (which have been out of the fridge for at least half an hour) and separate the yolks from the whites. Put the whites into a bowl and beat them together with the sugar (using an electric whisk ….or a bit of “muscle power”) until the sugar dissolves. Then add the chopped nuts and peel and mix everything together for a few minutes. Finally, add all the spices and stir the mixture for another 10 minutes. The dough, at the end, will still be rather moist and smooth… but that’s how it should be!
Line a baking tin with greaseproof paper and prepare a bowl of water. Now it’s time to shape the Mini Panforti: to make it easier wet your hands, then shape the mixture into disks roughly 1 cm thick and place them on the baking tray.
Bake them for 12 minutes in a preheated oven at 180 °C until they turn a nice biscuit colour. When they have cooled sprinkle them with icing sugar.