A gorgeous and quick present- biscuits with Baileys hazelnut liqueur and chocolate

I was inspired to come up with these really gorgeous Italian style hazelnut/chocolate biscuits as a quick little present this Christmas , through an unexpected email I received in the beginning of this month.
A lovely lady , Sarah Stevens, from a company called Grayling, wrote to me about my blog and how she loved my Bakewell tart, which recipe you can see here.
She then asked  if she could send me a sample of the new Baileys flavour, Baileys Hazelnut to try out in some of my recipes if I was thinking of doing seasonal recipes.
I thought it would be really fun to have a starting point and to try out lots of things around hazelnut and hazelnut liqueur - so yummy- so I had a bit of a think and have come up with this several recipes- this one is the first.
The combination of hazelnut and chocolate is a match made in heaven- just perfect.
Great with a strong espresso- mmm!
You can make it look very pretty by wrapping it , just like Italian Amaretti biscuits, in white tissue paper with a gold ribbon as you can see here above.
The recipe is super-easy- honestly. 
Give it a try!!
The ingredients are as here below :

Ingredients
340 gram ground almonds
340 gram caster sugar
half a cup of chocolate / cocoa powder
4 egg-whites
30 ml Baileys Hazelnut liqueur

How to make the biscuits:
Prepare 2 baking sheets by covering them with aluminium foil and greasing the foil with butter.Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Centigrade.
Whip the egg-whites till they are stiff  and you can get real peaks from them.
Fold the sugar, ground almonds, cocoa powder and hazelnut liqueur into the stiff egg-whites and get it to be a sticky but well-mixed dough.Don't over-mix ( and don't use a mixer but mix by hand ) -so there is no more air in the egg-white mixture, try to keep it light!!
Fill the baking trays with small blobs of the sticky dough- two teaspoons each is about right, 2 cm apart.
See below.

Then bake in the pre-heated oven for about 20 to 25 minutes- that is how long mine took to be done.The inside will still be a bit goey, but the outside should be done and crunchy to the touch.
Take off the baking trays and put on a plate or rack to cool down.
You can then put them all in a biscuit tin and give them as a present like below- to the right.

Or you can wrap them separately like amaretti biscuits, see here below and present  with coffee to your friends and family after Christmas lunch. Just take a square of some tissue paper, white or coloured, then twist the paper around the biscuit and tie a golden ribbon as decoration.

Whatever you do, your best bet is probably to give them away, as they are so tasty you will eat them all in one go !!!!Hand these out and make other people happy-much better for keeping your figure !!!
Happy baking!!
                                                        In the next week or so I will do some more seasonal baking and
will be covering some more holiday decorations and gifts, amongst which this gingerbreadhouse so stay tuned!

 I am linking this to the culinary smackdown battle
                                    It's a keeper Thursday link party. ( You can find the link at the bottom of my blog )