These crunchy and delicious hazelnut meringue cookies are well known in Italy with the name of “Brutti Ma Buoni”. That means they are not the best good looking, but they are INSANELY good.

Most importantly, they are naturally gluten free and grain free, as they include basically only hazelnuts, egg whites and sugar.

Find more notes on the process right after the recipe.

Hazelnut meringue cookies

4 from 1 vote

Course: SnacksCuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy

Servings

10

servings

Prep time

10

minutes

Cooking time

30

minutes

Total time

40

minutes

Ingredients

• 200 g / 1,5 cups toasted peeled hazelnuts (see notes)

• 200 g / 1 cup fine sugar

• 100 g / 3 oz egg whites (about 3 eggs)

• vanilla bean (optional)

• pinch of salt

How to

• Preheat oven to 150°C/300°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 
• Ground the hazelnuts until you have mostly hazelnut meal, but still with some bigger chunks of nuts.
• In a separate bowl, beat egg whites and a pinch salt with an electric mixer on medium speed until soft peaks form, around 3 minutes. Add the vanilla beans from the pod and then gradually add the sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating well after each addition.
• Sprinkle hazelnut meal over the egg whites and gently fold until mixture is even. 
• Drop 1 tablespoonful of meringue at a time, spaced on prepared baking sheets.
• Bake for 30 minutes. Let them cool completely before touching.

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Notes on the recipe

Can I replace the hazelnut meal?

Yes, you can. It is possible to replace the hazelnuts with almonds, walnuts, Brazil nuts, pecan nuts and even cashew or pine nuts. The best taste is with a 50% almonds and 50% hazelnuts though. But the important thing is that the nuts are peeled and toasted.

This hazelnut meringue cookies recipe is very forgiving, even changing a little the proportion of egg whites and nuts will not mess up the results. The cookies will just feel less or more “nutty”.

Looking for other gluten free cookies recipes as good as these hazelnut meringue cookies?

Check out this recipe for my foolproof almond shortbread cookies or this cat shaped butter cookies – cuteness overload!

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