Sense of place (3): almond meltaways

It was quite difficult to finish these cookies and make this post possible today as the dough of this cookie was supposed to be easy to work with but it was not. The dough was breaking apart and it was simply impossible to open it to cut the cookies with the shapes I had in mind. The solution was to roll the dough in a parchment paper, refrigerate the dough and cut slices. I rolled quite thick rolls and the cookie is slightly bigger than other types of meltaways I used to make but I didn't want these to be small cookies since I had planned to frost the cookies and add some nuts.




This was the worst recipe for a Friday afternoon, specially on the last day of school, with party at the children's school, the worst traffic of the year in Trondheim and loads of stuff to do at home. If I was able to make this third post I am quite confident that I will be able to go further with my project of seven posts about cookies to honor the Sami people of Norway and to celebrate the solstice. The result was worth all the effort as this almond meltaways are simply delicious, crunchy, chewy, not very sweet and with a fantastic aroma of nuts and butter. I loved them.




Almond Meltaways

150 grams finely grounded almonds
120 grams wheat flour
125 grams butter at room temperature
75 grams sugar
1 table spoon vanilla sugar

For the sugar frosting
50 grams confectioners sugar
1 table spoon hot water
Toasted and grounded hazelnuts or pistachios to sprinkle on top

Mix almond flour, wheat flour and sugar. Add butter cut in small pieces and using your fingers (or mixer) mix to incorporate all the ingredients and form a quite dry dough. Divide the dough in two parts and roll each part into a piece of parchment paper rolling the paper very tight. Refrigerate dough for at least one hour. Turn on the oven at 180C/350F. Cut slices of 1 centimeter or 1/2 inch. Bake at 180C/350F in a tray over parchment paper for 10 to 12 minutes or until the borders of the cookies are golden. Let them cool and decorate with sugar frosting and grounded nuts. The dough can be refrigerate for 3 days and the cookies can be kept in air tight containers up to 3 days. Makes around 3 dozens of cookies.