Amaretti and ice cream parfait

Yes, here I go with another ice cream related post - again.  But actually, it really started with homemade amaretti cookies.

My alter ego likes crisp and crunchy whereas I'd normally identify myself as the soft, chewy, warm, ooey gooey type when it comes to treats.  And take a look at my recipe index and you'll find a number of recipes featuring nuts and almonds, specifically.  Needless to say, I like them.  In this case, we have Amaretti, which is a crisp, lightly crunchy, dry cookie that's full of fragrant almond flavor.

I realized as I was making these that I've made them before in the guise of amaretti crisps.  The recipes are very similar but here we're going for the traditional round Italian Amaretti, which you readily see around the holidays though you should be able to find them in places like Whole Foods all year round.  It turns out that authentic amaretti are made with apricot kernels, not almonds - who knew!  So theoretically, the homemade version isn't actually the "real" thing, but I don't mind.  I thought it would be fun to make a batch to keep around the house (they keep well for a couple of weeks) - to munch on or use in, say, an ice cream parfait.  Now if you're thinking I made these as an excuse to make ice cream parfaits, you would be correct. 

For this parfait, think of a cup of coffee or espresso with a couple of amaretti cookies on the side.  To turn that idea into an ice cream parfait, I layered coarsely chopped amaretti cookies and chocolate covered espresso beans between  layers of coffee ice cream.  Needless to say, it helps to use good coffee ice cream; you know the usual suspects.  In this case, I used Starbucks coffee and espresso swirl ice cream.

The result was divine.  You have smooth ice cream with crunchy almond cookies that's just slightly softened by the ice cream.  Add to it chocolate and espresso beans that emphasize the coffee flavor and give it even more crunch, and we have a very good parfait indeed.  I think I now understand why parfait means "perfect" in French.  And make it perfect for you.  If you don't like the coffee idea, use vanilla ice cream or maybe vanilla ice cream with chocolate coated almonds and the amaretti.

This is another way to dress up some ice cream and make a simple dessert that's good enough for a dinner party.  And if someone doesn't like ice cream (are there such people?), you can offer coffee with amaretti cookies on the side.

Next up, I'm going to use some of these amaretti to make a chocolate cake!  Stay tuned...