These Italian pignoli cookies are so easy yet so impressive. Their crisp exterior is covered in soft, buttery pine nuts but the interior stays chewy and velvety thanks to the almond paste base, just like you'd get at an Italian bakery.
Preheat the oven to 350ºF (177ºC). Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat and set aside.
Cut or break apart the almond paste and place into the bowl of a food processor. Add the powdered sugar, vanilla extract, salt, and egg white and pulse until smooth.
Place the pine nuts in a medium size bowl, then, using a cookie scoop (I use this #50 cookie scoop for all of my standard size cookies), drop one ball of dough into the bowl of pine nuts. Use your fingers to gently roll the dough around in the pine nuts. The dough will be soft and sticky, so the pine nuts should stick well, but if they don't, use your fingers to gently press them into the cookie dough. You do not need to roll the bottoms of the cookie dough balls in the pine nuts.
Repeat with the rest of the dough, placing no more than 8 cookies on one prepared baking sheet. Bake the pignoli cookies for 16-18 minutes or until they are puffed and lightly browned around the edges. Allow cookies to cool completely on the baking sheet before moving them to a wire cooling rack to cool completely. Cookies will look and feel underdone in the centers, and this is ok. Store leftovers covered tightly at room temperature up to 5 days. Cookies freeze well, up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature.
All nutritional values are approximate and provided to the reader as a courtesy. Changing ingredients and/or quantities will alter the estimated nutritional calculations.