A iteration of my other Cantucci recipe for cocoa flavored ones.

Ingredients

• 230g cake flour
• 200g selfmade vanilla sugar
• 20g cocoa powder
• 150g almonds
• 2 eggs
• 4g baking powder (ca. 1 tsp)
• 0,5g lemon cest
• 4g salt
• 5g good rum (ca. 1tsp)

Instructions

Start by roasting the almonds in a preheated oven (200 degrees) for 4 minutes.

Let the almonds cool down while measuring the other ingredients.

Crack the eggs ant scramble them. Place one tbsp of egg to the side for brushing later on. Mix the rest of the egg with the sugar rum and salt. Let that mix until the sugar dissolved and the mass is super creamy. I let this mix for about 7 minutes.

Note: I added the flour at the beginning by accident. This way the sugar did not desolve right away. To counter that I let the dough knead for about 10 minutes. If you taste the raw dough you to notice the difference in mouth feel due to the sugar crystals. The final product was fine though a bit more dense. I would not suggest doing this on purose. However, you still can use the dough and do not need to throw out everythind in case you also mess up.

Now add the flour mixed with the cocoa powder, baking powder and lemon cest bit by bit. Once everything is combined form four loafs on the baking tray. Forming is not that important. Cut you will not see it anyways, just try to keep it dense.

Brush them with the placed aside egg and bake them for 20 minutes at 180 degrees. To not burn them Id suggest to cover them with baking paper after 10 minutes. Dont cover them from the beginning or the dough might stick to the baking paper if you remove it too early.

Get them out ant let them cool down for 20 minutes. With a sharp knife cut them into 1 cm thick pieces. Arrange them on a backing tray and bake them for another 15 minutes at 160 degrees. Let them fully coodown before enjoying them.

To store use an air tight container. As long as they do not absorb moisture they can be stored up for weeks, if not months.

Best served with great coffee :)