Bitterkoekjes – Almond Macaroons
Bitterkoekjes are almond macaroons with a crisp exterior and a soft center. This macaroons recipe is made with almond paste and without coconut. A Dutch treat that my husband’s family devours on Christmas Day.
My father-in-law is the youngest of seven children. His family immigrated from Holland to the United States before the last three children were born. My husband grew up loving Dutch treats from a local bakery, especially the Bitterkoekjes, an almond macaroon cookie.
When the bakery went out of business a few years ago, my husband decided he would make the Bitterkoekjes for the family Christmas gathering. He started with a basic almond macaroon recipe on the almond paste package and tweaked it until it tasted like the Bitterkoekjes he remembered.
So for week 11 of my 12 Weeks of Christmas I am posting my husband’s recipe for bitterkoekjes.
He is the only one in his family to make the cookie recipe because they can be a bit temperamental and others in his family have not been successful making them.
They usually stick to the parchment paper. The recipe suggests wetting the paper on the bottom, but he prefers to let them cool on the tray and then put the tray in the freezer for a few minutes and then they’re much easier to remove from the paper.
If you love almond desserts, you need to give this macaroon recipe a try.
Bitterkoekjes Recipe - Almond Macaroons
Ingredients
Instructions
April from Abbys Sweets
Denise from Keeper Worthy Recipes
Megan’s from My Baking Adventures
Kim from Stirring the Pot
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Barbara, I have a good friend with strong Dutch traditions. I’m sure he and his family will love these. I’m curious. Is parchment required? I mean do the silpats not work for this recipe? I know some like meringues do better with parchment than the liners but I wondered if these would work using the liners. Can’t wait to try the recipe. I have lots of almond paste–I buy it by 7 pound cans. LOL Thanks for this recipe!
Hi Linda – you can use a Silpat but you get better browning on the bottom when you use parchment. Let me know how it goes.
Thanks, Barbara. I have parchment too and can use that. I’m excited to try this one. Jonn (my friend) loves me to bring some Danish treats around to enjoy. Thanks for your quick response.
Baking my cookies now. I got maybe 70 cookies using my #40 scoop. I wasn’t sure if they spread but from the first pan, it doesn’t look like any spreading. A couple of questions:
Can you chill the dough? I wasn’t sure if they would get tough or anything if you did. I noticed they dried quickly after scooping them and waiting for the oven. Seems easier to flatten them after a bit of drying. Is there any problem with that vs. damping the finger? Definitely a sticky dough to work with but the cookies seem to keep a pretty nice shape after a bit of struggle getting released from the scoop. I’m excited to take them for review! Thanks again!
My husband generally makes the cookies, he hasn’t tried chilling the dough and he only scoops one tray at a time so them drying out hasn’t been a problem. They do spread a little in the oven, sort of melting from the top down, but not a ton. I’ll look forward to hearing how your friend likes them.
Hi, Barbara. I’m updating my remarks since you indicated some interest. I put too many cookies on a sheet. I didn’t think they would spread as much so I maybe put them 1 in. apart. I would mention in the recipe to allow at least 2 in. around each cookie unless your husband has a different situation. Because of that mine didn’t seem to brown and seemed a bit raw at 11 minutes so I added another 4. That helped get a bit of browning but mine weren’t close to as brown as yours–even with parchment. Could be due to them taking too long due to them being so close and baking slower. One slightly smaller one had more brown. Unless mine spread more than his, I would say they are a little large for my typical cookie and I think I’d drop and use a #100 scoop. One sheet was baked less and I think suffered being too underdone. But I wasn’t done, I took those cookies and turned them into a smooth mixture in the mixer and added some ingredients for an almond biscotti. I figured if they might be heavy (the recipe called for almond cake filling) so the drier baking for biscotti would resolve that. Seemed to work. The biscotti are quite good. The remainder I think are ok and I will take them to my friend’s for review. I’m sure he will be honest about it and let me know his thoughts. Mine may have been fine if they weren’t too crowded. I have made myself a note to make sure I don’t do that again. But I thought I’d mention it here for others who might think due to no leavening they might not spread that much. Or maybe it was my batter. I’d like to try chilling part of it next time and testing that to see if they still are the same baking them after a chill. Thanks again for the recipe and fun!!
Thanks for the update. Mark puts 12 cookies on a sheet and makes them about the size of a standard cookie. He said there is a lot of variation between almond pastes, so that could account for some of the differences as well. After he cooks the first batch, if they’re too soft, he’ll add an extra egg white. I’ll look forward to hearing how your friend likes them.
I use big 3/4 (or sometimes called 2/3) sheet pans so I could probably do 16 but I will make notes from your comments for the next time. I would have done them again but a lot of eggs to deal with and yolks to use later. I’d rather find what works with Jonn and work from there. I appreciate the feedback. I don’t feel it is the recipe–but my handling that created the problems but I have 2 cookies now instead of one due to the problems–so always good for me since I tend to hand out a lot of cookies. HA
These look like keepers!
After making tiramisu I had a slew of eggs whites left over. I always save them and then end up throwing them out several days later when I can’t figure out what to do with them. This time I decided to do a search and not be wasteful. I found this interesting recipe and decided to give it a try. Changes I made were to use 4 – 8 oz packages of almond paste and to reduce the granulated sugar to 1 cup. The egg whites ended up being a tad over 1 cup. The dough was more like a thick batter and spread out a little on the tray so I did not have to press them down. I followed the baking directions as written but found that the cookies were not done after 11 minutes. I actually baked them at 340 degrees for 17 – 20 minutes depending on if I had one or two trays in the oven. I cooled them for 5-10 minutes on the trays and then slid them onto the cool granite counter top for 5-10 minutes. They came off of the parchment paper easily with a thin spatula.
The results were outstanding. My family rated these cookies as excellent. If you are an almond lover these cookies will not disappoint.
Glad they were a hit Debra. Love that you changed it up to suit your tastes.
Holy Cow – your Mac recipes never cease to amaze me! Thanks for sharing these with the heritage behind them!
Have a wonderful holiday!
Donna
ah! These sound so good. I can almost smell the almond.
They look great!!
You really scored with the gift packages. The cookies look mighty tasty too.
What a wonderful family holiday tradition. How sweet that your hubby makes these cookies and keeps the tradition alive!
Aww what gorgeous cookies mum! It's so nice to do something from your heritage for Christmas 😀
Aww you're more than welcome! And the jam is a speciality of Vienna apparently harvested just near the Danube Valley! It's the least I could do and I'm so glad that it got there safely and you like it! 🙂 BTW I decorated that gingerbread bell in a bakery at St Wolfgang!
Beautiful cookies. I love that your husband wanted to create something from his childhood, how sweet is that? What a great tip to put the cookies in the freezer to release them. Thanks!
These cookies are truly lovely and sound delicious. I am so impressed that your hubby is such a good baker. (My hubby can make eggs and spaghetti, lol!) The sweet treats from Lorraine look fantastic!
Barbara, I love to see a man cook, and when he makes something special for the ENTIRE family, well he's just something special himself.
Oooh, those cookies look and sound so good. Don't you just love the foods of our memories. Makes them even so much more.
Wonderful cookie swaps. Wow! Folks have really put a lot of effort into make them so beautiful.
OOooooh, I am fascinated by these macarons. I'd love to try one!
Hope you are having a fab weekend daaaaaaahling.
*kisses* HH
The recipe sounds like amaretti, one of my favourite biscuits.
I love almonds in cookies, biscuits, cakes etc….
Your almond macarons are gorgeous!
Happy Holidays Barbara
great presents! I love macarons…
Happy Christmas and happy New Year!!!!
A kiss from Spain
The cookies sound so good! I love almond paste! What sweet packages!
I love European cookies. So different. These sound and look great.
what a fun exchange, i love those cookies you made too, delicious!