Yesterday morning I got into work, heated up my coffee, glanced through my list of things to do, new emails, and checked what’s on my calendar for this week and next week. And then my jaw just about hit the floor when I saw that Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK!!! I honestly did not realize at ALL how soon it is. I would have told you it’s three weeks away.
That’s fine, bring on the holidays! I’m excited. It’s such a happy time of year, the work weeks are easier and shorter, the drinks are more festive, the amount of glitter that surrounds me multiplies exponentially, and the COOKIES begin.
Prepare yourselves to be bombarded with cookie recipes the next few weeks because I am joining a cookie competition for Preston’s office holiday party and for some reason I’m feeling very competitive and determined to win. The recipe testing has already begun. Last week I made these ridiculously good, buttery, rich, crumbly, but actually not very sweet Russian tea cakes, which are unbelievably delightful. It’s basically shortbread. With almonds. What more can you ask for?!?
Just so you know, this is NOT one of those recipes I try to play some healthy-swapping game with and make a little healthier. I did use a little more almonds than flour compared to most recipes, but that’s just because I like a lot of almonds in mine. They’re still full of butter.
- 1 C almonds (or any nut)
- 1 1/2 C all-purpose flour
- pinch of salt
- 1/2 C powdered sugar
- 1 C butter, softened
- 1 1/2 t vanilla extract
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Grind almonds into a fine meal in a food processor. Add the flour, salt, and powdered sugar and process just to combine. Add butter and vanilla, and blend until well mixed.
- Use a small ice cream scoop to measure equal portions onto a cooking sprayed baking sheet. I like them just fine all rustic-like (especially when weighing the ease of that system with nicely rolling them), but if you want them to be prettier and rounder (which is traditional), you can roll them into a ball in your hand. They don’t really expand, so you can place them pretty close to one another on your baking sheet.
- Bake just about 8-10 minutes, until you can see that the bottom is starting to brown. Allow to cool and coat in more powdered sugar.
Unbelievably good. Russian tea cakes for the win.
Next up: caramel apple oatmeal cookies…. yup. 😉
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