Montini, which translates to little mountains in Italian, are delicious almond mound cookies typical of the Jewish holiday of Purim, which we will celebrate next weekend.
Purim is a very joyful holiday, during which we remember one of the many times some villains, in this case, a minister named Haman under the reign of Xerxes, in 450 BC, tried to take out the Jewish people, unsuccessfully. If you want additional historical details, you can check out the history of Purim on our Jewish holidays page.

Purim is characterized by joy and merrymaking; we eat, drink, party in the streets, and allow children to dress up, similarly to what non-Jews do for Carnival. One of the traditions of Purim, among other things, is to gift friends with a package of sweets called mishloach manot.
Every year, I look forward to adding a new recipe to my mishloach manot repertoire, and this year I chose the montini, a festive Jewish treat from Trieste, in the North of Italy.

My friend Daniele, whose family comes from Trieste, asked me a few times to prepare these cookies but, until a few days ago, I had not dared to try. There were many versions of the recipe (some with eggs, others without, some with cooked sugar, some with raw sugar), and I was terrified of making mistakes.
Then, fortunately, Daniele’s sister Anna came to my rescue, sharing her recipe for montini: easy, quick, and perfect, of course.

Montini make a great cookie year-around, not only for Purim. They are naturally gluten-free so they are perfect for Celiac people, and for the same reason, they also come in handy for the Jewish holiday of Passover, when flour is prohibited.

Montini for Purim

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Total Time 20 minutes mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine Ebraica

Servings 50

Ingredients

  

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• 600 g ground almonds or almond flour
• 400 g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 shot glass of liqueur (brandy, cognac or similar)

Instructions

 

• First, pour the almond flour into a large bowl. If you have ground the almonds at home, let the almond flour dry at room temperature for a few minutes; if, instead, you have chosen to use ready-made almond flour, proceed with the next step.
  600 g ground almonds or almond flour
• Knead the almond flour with eggs, sugar, and liqueur, until the mixture is moist and malleable. At this stage, you can also add vanilla, lemon, or almond extract if you like, but I prefer montini plain.
  400 g sugar, 1/2 shot glass of liqueur (brandy, cognac or similar), 2 eggs
• Preheat the oven to 365°F and line a baking tray with parchment paper. In the old days montini were not baked, just left to air-dry, however, I recommend baking them for a short time to be on the safe side, since they contain eggs.
• Form the dough into balls, and pinch them at the top to create the shape of a little mountain. At this stage, if you prefer, you can add cocoa or food coloring to half the dough, making bicolor montini.
• Cook montini for 7-10 minutes, and pull them out of the oven when they are still pale: they should only have a thin crust on the surface but remain entirely soft inside.
• Gently remove montini from the baking tray with the help of a spatula and store them in a tin box.

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