cinnamon balls recipe – a jewish sort of biscuit – no fuss
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Growing up in Whitechapel, London in the 1950’s there were several Jewish bakeries – Rinkoffs and Kosoffs and another were yards away but today there’s that many in all of London. For me the chollah (challah) and beigel rolls (pronounced bye-gel) and platzel rolls (pletzel) were awesomeness. But then there were these ‘cinnamon balls’ – a biscuit made with expensive almond flour and these need little time to reproduce as well as the bakery did back then. So what is a good cinnamon ball? I aim for a soft crumbly texture and if possible, a soft outside coating but something halfway to hard and dry is another goal. (If not see recipe for jewish cheesecake).
cinnamon balls recipe – makes 16-18 balls (less if you halve these quantities to use one egg)
- 2 egg whites plus a good pinch of salt (£0.50)
- 8oz or 225g ground almonds (£3.50)
- 4oz or 110g caster or soft brown sugar (£0.25). The sugar can be reduced to 80g
- 1 level tablespoon of ground cinnamon (£0.30) plus optionally some drops of vanilla extract
- cook for 18 minutes at 170’C (£0.50)
- icing sugar for dusting = or run some granular sugar in a blender (£0.10)
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- Get the oven warming to 170°C and prepare a tray with oiled aluminium foil.
- Whizz up two egg whites and add a pinch of salt. No need to beat them white..
- In another bowl or bag on the scales mix ground almonds; sugar and cinnamon/vanilla. Add this to the egg whites until you’ve a sticky mix.
- Use a knife to level off eg a 25ml serving spoon with the mixture and gently form this into a 2.5cm ball on the oven foil. Use damp hands – no need to roll them smooth or squash them hard.
- Cooking time can vary because our ovens aren’t exact but let’s cook for 18 mins at 170°C. If you don’t want the balls to go hard try 18 mins at 160°C and cover them with foil as they cook.
- 25 mins at 150°C,
- 20 mins at 160°C
- 18 mins at 170°C
- Toss the cooked balls in a bowl or a grip seal plastic sandwich box with some icing sugar. If the outside is hard place the cooked balls in a closed plastic sandwich box for a few days.
recipe cost
Recipe cost £5 for 18 balls at £0.28p each or £12.00 per kilogram. These are Tesco prices in 2024 when a pint of milk was £0.90 and fillet steak was £38 a kilo.
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