the hungry tiger: Almond cookies

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October 20, 2002

Almond cookies

On hand: a package of organic Sicilian marzipan and an itch to bake a whole lot of cookies, by way of bribing myself to do my grading. Eventually, I was left with a slightly odd complement of ingredients, and invented these to use them up. They are soft and decadent and as great with coffee as macaroons are with tea.

Almond and apricot are natural friends; I have been told that the best way to bring out the flavor of somewhat insipid apricots is to bake or poach them with something almondy. Cherries, too, get along well with almond, and I'd like to try these again sometime with wild cherry jam.

INGREDIENTS
1 stick (8 Tbs) butter
4 oz. sweetened almond paste or marzipan
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 c. flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
apricot jam for filling

TO DO
Preheat oven to 350° F.

1. Beat almond paste and butter together until they are extremely fluffy. Beat in vanilla.

2. Sift flour and baking powder together. Add flour mixture to butter mixture and beat just until fully combined.

3. Make balls of dough about the size of a Superball. Make hollows for the jam as follows: Poke a chopstick into the center of the ball and stir gently to open out the hole. Insert your finger into the hole and expand it the rest of the way. What you are going for is to make the ball into a thick-walled hollow sphere with a 3/4" hole at the top. The hollow should be wider than the hole itself. Arrange the cookies on your cookie sheet.

4. Using your 1/4 teaspoon measuring spoon, insert a heaping tiny spoonful of jam into each hollow.

5. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes, or until ever so palely golden. These cookies are very fragile when they are warm, so let them set up a minute on the sheet and take extra care as you transfer the cookies to the cooling racks. They willl firm up as they cool.

Posted by redfox at October 20, 2002 11:38 AM (recipes)