Thursday, December 20, 2012

Seven days of holiday baking: Day 4 - Brown butter-toasted almond cookies

Admittedly, I was worried about how these cookies would turn out when I saw the batter. It seemed too...oily. Again, this is my own recipe so I had no reviews to fall back onIn the end, these turned out to be one of my favourites (along with the cocoa-espresso cookies, coming up soon). They have a pleasant crumbly texture, delicate almond flavour and are not overly greasy or sweet. N suggested they would pair well with afternoon tea, and I couldn't agree more. Teddi - these are egg-free!

To make, sauté 1/4 cup slivered almonds in a small dry saucepan over medium heat until just starting to brown. Shake pan occasionally to avoid burning. Set almonds aside. In the same saucepan, prepare 1/2 cup browned butter, then allow to cool slightly.

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat browned butter, 1/4 cup almond butter and 3/4 cup brown sugar on high. (If you don't have almond butter, I suggest increasing the amount of browned butter above to 3/4 cup, and either preparing 1/3 cup of toasted almonds instead of 1/4 cup, or adding 1 tsp almond extract.) Add 3 tsp amaretto and mix. Gradually mix in 2 cups of all--purpose flour. Stir in toasted almonds. Taking care to handle the dough as little as possible, roll dough into 1" balls and space out on an ungreased cookie sheet. Insert a dried cherry into the top of each cookie, then bake at 400 for 15 minutes.

Tip: If you have patience in abundance, these cookies would probably be even more fantastic if you substituted lightly crushed German-style burnt almonds for the toasted slivered almonds.

 


1 comment:

  1. I ended up making a Version of this cookie! youll have to see my blog post about it :)

    ReplyDelete

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