Sifnos Recipe
Amygdalota
Soft almond cookies dusted in icing sugar — the most famous sweet on the island.
Cooking time
45 minutes
Serves
20 cookies
Sifnos amygdalota are soft almond biscuits: ground almonds, sugar, egg white, rose water, a whole almond on top, then a heavy coat of icing sugar. They stay pale. They chew. They are not the harder Hydra kind and they are not a macaron. Every bakery has a slightly different family mix.
Theodorou in Apollonia is the famous stop. Others exist; a village oven that still sells them warm is the point, not the postcard. They travel in a paper bag. They crush if you treat them like rusks. The same confectioner also makes halvadopita and ypovrichio.
This is the bakery job on a Sifnos day, after the meze table or instead of a sweet at the taverna. The rest of the island kitchen is on the cuisine hub. A cooking class will sometimes run them if you want the dough in your hands.
Ingredients
- •500g ground almonds
- •300g caster sugar
- •2 egg whites
- •1 tbsp rose water
- •Whole almonds for decoration
- •Icing sugar to dust
Preparation
- 1.Mix ground almonds and sugar in a bowl.
- 2.Whisk egg whites to soft peaks; fold into the almond mix with rose water.
- 3.Shape the dough into small pear shapes; press a whole almond on top.
- 4.Bake at 160°C for 15–18 minutes — they should stay pale.
- 5.Cool, then dust generously with icing sugar.
Where to try it
Theodorou bakery, Apollonia.
Theodorou bakery in Apollonia is the name people give visitors. Go in the morning if you want them that day; popular trays empty. Other village bakeries sell their own. Pale and heavy with sugar is the Sifnos style — walk away from a dark, dry biscuit.
Frequently asked questions
Soft almond cookies from ground almonds, sugar, egg white and rose water, dusted with icing sugar. The famous sweet of Sifnos.
Sifnos stays paler and chewier. Hydra’s are often firmer and more baked. Do not brown them; the recipe on this page says 160°C and a short time.
Theodorou in Apollonia is the famous bakery. Other village ovens sell them. Buy the same day you want to eat them.
The island recipe is almonds, sugar, egg white, rose water. No wheat in the dough on this page. Confirm at the bakery if you need a guarantee.
A few days in a tin, longer than a sponge cake, shorter than a rusk. Icing sugar weeps in humidity. Eat them on the island if you can.
A little orange blossom water is the usual swap. Water alone tastes flat. The almond is the body; the flower water is the Sifnos smell.
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