Chewy Almond Cookies aka Biscuits

We all like a bit of Donna Hay, don't we? - she is an icon of Aussie cooking.  I've made a couple of her biscuit recipes lately, but these were actually made way back in August last year for Cookbook Club.  This recipe is from Too easy, another of her popular cookbooks.  And there are so many more recipes I want to try ... 

Start these in plenty of time, as the dough has to rest in the freezer for about 30 minutes to firm up, before baking, and then sits for another 10 minutes after you take it out of the freezer, before going into the oven.  Huh?  Seems a wee bit odd to me, but anyways ...  Like many a cookbook, the recipes are not really built for a Queensland kitchen!

golden, nutty, delicious

Makes 20-22 biscuits:

ingredients:

250g./9 oz butter, melted

240g./8.5 oz brown sugar

220g./8 oz caster sugar

120g./4.5 oz almond meal (aka ground almonds)

1 large egg

2 tsp vanilla extract

300g./10.5 oz plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

135g./5 oz flaked almonds   see Notes

icing sugar, for dusting

Method:

Into a large bowl go the butter, brown sugar, caster sugar, almond meal, egg and vanilla - and give 'em a good stir to combine

The flour and baking powder get sifted over the top of this mix, and you give all that a good stir

Your flaked almonds are now sitting on a large plate, and you will then roll 2 Tbs of the dough into balls, then roll onto the plate to get covered in almond flakes

Put 'em onto a couple of large, baking paper-lined baking trays (leaving a bit of room around each ball), and whack into the freezer for 30 minutes (or more - till firm)

Turn on your oven to 180C/350F to heat up

After 10 minutes out of the freezer, the trays are placed in the oven, and the biscuits baked for about 15 minutes or till golden   see Notes

Let 'em cool right down on the trays, then dust with the icing sugar

oh yes, vanilla paste

and pecans

Notes:

From my photos, it seems I didn't have enough flaked almonds to coat the dough balls in, so I used some chopped-up pecans to make up the difference!

Dunno why, but they took 20 minutes in my oven to get golden

ingredients gathered

stir together the sugars, melted butter, almond meal, egg, vanilla

and stir in the flour and baking powder till you have a soft dough

onto trays and into the freezer for half an hour to firm up

golden and nutty after 20 minutes baking

onto the wire rack to get really cool

pile 'em up!

don't forget the icing sugar!

Just FYI for anyone following my saga of the rotting, festering mangoes in our backyard: we have now picked up about 200 kilos!  There are still some lurking in the grass, looking like hairy dead rats!  Somewhat ironically, I made some mango/nectarine chutney last weekend - but with mangoes from our new neighbour's dad's garden - I think!  Though perhaps he just conjured them up from somewhere :=) 

biscuits/cookies!