Walnut Kiss Cookies (Oreshki)

Put the liquid egg white, the granulated sugar and the ground walnuts into a Bowl and mix everything with a Scraper into an even mass. It's still thin and grainy at this point – that's exactly right.

Cover the mass and put it in the fridge for at least 2 hours, better 3. During this time, the ground walnuts absorb the moisture from the egg white, and the thin mass turns into a thick, smooth paste. Without this resting time, it will spread out later when piping – this is the step that determines the shape of the biscuits.

Use this waiting time straight away for the Ganache. Bring the full cream to the boil together with the Glucose syrup. As soon as it boils, take the pan off the heat, add the couverture drops and stir everything into a smooth, homogeneous Ganache.

The Glucose syrup is no mere extra: it keeps the Ganache smooth, prevents it from turning sandy later, and makes it easier to spread.

Pour the finished Ganache into a shallow Bowl – shallow because it cools through more evenly and quickly in it than in a tall container.

Lay the cling film directly onto the surface, not just over the rim. That way no skin forms, which you'd otherwise find later as lumps in the Piping bag. Then into the fridge for about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 150 °C fan.

Take the walnut mixture out of the fridge and set the bowl over a water bath. Keep stirring it through with the rubber scraper until the mixture becomes more fluid. Warm it to exactly 65 °C using the digital thermometer, then take it off the heat.

These 65 °C are the heart of the recipe: at this temperature the sugar dissolves completely, the egg white is safely heated and the mixture turns smooth. Don't go any higher – above that the egg white begins to curdle, and the mixture becomes flaky instead of silky.

Now whip the mixture until it is no longer warm – this takes around 10 minutes. Cooling it while whipping creates the fine, airy structure that later makes these cookies so tender. Cut this short and you end up with dense caps instead of tender ones.

Finally, add the lemon juice and then the flour. Just mix briefly, don't whip any more. The four grams of lemon juice sound like nothing, but they do two things: they stabilise the egg white and take the edge off the 300 g of sugar.

Fill the finished mixture into a piping bag with a 10 mm round piping nozzle. If it still seems a little soft or runny, set the filled bag aside for 10 to 15 minutes – it will firm up a bit more.

Then pipe small oval blobs onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Leave enough space, as they spread slightly during baking. Take your time to make even blobs: they bake in the same time, and because each cookie is later dipped individually, any irregularity shows up twice at the end.

Now place a nice walnut half on each piped blob. Press it in very gently so it stays put during baking, but not so firmly that it sinks into the dough.

Pick out the prettiest halves – the nut is the face of this cookie, and it is the only part not covered in chocolate at the end.

Bake the cookies at 150 °C fan for around 15 minutes. They should be light golden brown and firm on the outside, but stay soft inside – baked too dark, they turn hard.

Then let them cool on the tray for 20 minutes. While warm they won't come off the paper; once cold they release on their own.

The Ganache has firmed up by now. Stir it well with the Rubber scraper until it is smooth and supple again, then fill it into a clean Piping bag with a 10-mm Round piping nozzle – not the one used for the nut mixture.

Carefully turn each baked walnut cookie so that the flat underside faces up, and place a dab of Ganache on it – around 7 to 8 g per cookie.

Then set the cookies down with the Ganache side facing down onto fresh baking paper and press them very gently so that the Ganache forms a nice, even disc. After that, they all go into the fridge for around 30 minutes. The Ganache must be firm before dipping – otherwise it dissolves in the warm chocolate.

In the meantime, prepare the coating. Temper the Milk couverture – exactly how this is done is shown step by step in the post Tempering couverture and chocolate correctly. Only tempered chocolate shines, becomes firm and breaks with a fine snap when you bite into it.
If you prefer it simpler: Milk chocolate Cake icing does not need to be tempered, it is only melted. It shines a little less, but works just as well.
Carefully release the chilled cookies from the baking paper. For dipping, it's best to hold them by the walnut with two fingers.

Dip the cookies into the chocolate only far enough that the Ganache is no longer visible from the outside – not deeper. The half walnut on top stays uncovered, and it is exactly this contrast between the pale nut and the dark chocolate rim that makes the cookie what it is.

Set them down afterwards on clean baking paper and put them in the fridge for another 5 minutes, so the coating sets quickly and shiny.

Done. In a well-sealed tin, the walnut kiss cookies keep for two weeks.