Chewy amaretti cookies made with pistachio flour for a buttery, nutty flavor and gorgeous natural hue.

My favorite soft amaretti cookies with a perfect pistachio twist! Dare I say that pistachios are quickly surpassing almonds as my favorite nuts?

The pistachio obsession continues.

Swapping pistachio flour for almond in my soft amaretti cookie recipe brings an incredible rich and buttery depth of flavor that simply can’t be beat.

The richness of the pistachio tempers the saccharine sweetness that almond tends to intensify; and so, despite the fact that these cookies use the exact same amount of sugar, they don’t taste nearly as sweet as the original.

After a few test batches experimenting with various ratios, I ended up settling on a 50/50 ratio of pistachio flour to almond flour.

Why not use all pistachio flour, you ask?

Well, pistachio flour is crazy expensive, for one thing, but I found that it doesn’t hold its shape quite as well as the almond flour does. Instead, using half and half created a good balance of pistachio flavor to almond structure, resulting in a noticeably pistachio-flavored cookie but still preserved the same shape and chewy character as the original cookies.

(more…)