Saturday, January 30, 2010

Can't Wait to be Kissed

I have been really excited for Valentine's Day this year because I'll be celebrating it with a BFF in North Carolina. But before I go on my trip I was getting anxious to make some festive luv treats. I did some research and got a few recipes I'm going to make this week but I just had to make some sugary goodness tonight. So it was a Pre-Feb taste.

Who doesn't love sugar cookies? Now I make a wicked cutter cookie but this recipe is a spin on the sugar cookie dough recipe. Now, this isn't my signature cutter cookie recipe because that's just one of those recipes that I keep secret. But I found this recipe last week, made it tonight and it was really good. It comes in 2 parts.

Almond Kisses

First you need some sugar cookie dough, here's the recipe:
3 cps flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cp unsalted butter softened
1 cp sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 Tbs milk

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. Place butter and sugar in large bowl and beat until light in color. Add egg and milk and beat to combine. Put mixer on low speed, gradually add flour, and beat until mixture pulls away from the side of the bowl. Take dough out of bowl and put on a clean work surface.

The kissing it with almonds part
1/4 cp flour
1/4 cp whole almonds, very finely chopped (I did mine in a mini food processor)
1/4 tsp pur almond extract
1/2 cp powdered sugar
2 Tbs red sanding sugar
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a work surface, knead the flour into the sugar cookie dough. Add chopped almonds and almond extract and knead dough until evenly incorporated. Scoop level tablespoons of dough and roll into smooth balls between the palms of your hands. Place balls about 1 inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet and chill for 20 minutes. Bake until set and golden on the bottom, about 12-14 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes on baking sheet. Stir the powdered sugar and red sugar together in a shallow bowl. While cookies are still warm, roll in sugar mixture with a fork until completely coated, gently pressing cookies into mixture to adhere the sanding sugar. Transfer to paper towel to cool.
Really good - not too rich. But the perfect amount of yumminess to make you smile from being almond kissed.

There will be another treat this week I'll blahg about. So check back later. It involves pink icing. Fun!


3 comments:

  1. Wow - the almond touch sounds REALLY good.

    Crazy snow in NC - wow.

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  2. Sounds so yummy! Where do you find red sanding sugar?

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  3. If these cookies grow mold, you can leave them up for St. Patrick's day.

    ReplyDelete