Thursday, September 6, 2012

Cubicle kitchen: Cocoa Almond Crescent Cookies

How can I justify making almond crescent cookies?  It's not Christmas, it's not even Christmas in July.  I have no fancy excuses, I just had almonds, and I wanted to make crescent cookies.  So I did.  And thankfully no one seemed to care that these were seasonally inappropriate, they just ate them and made the expected noises of tasty satisfaction and gratitude.

Please bear with me as I define my own recipe-writing standards.  Having bookmarked and saved a number of recipes from other blogs, websites, forums, etc., I'm going to try and amalgamate what I find to be good presentation.  Let me know if you have any suggestions.  I work in technical documentation, and I know customer surveys are important!


Cocoa Almond Crescent Cookies

(Adapted from Simply Recipes)

Makes about 36 cookies

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup butter, room temperature
  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon almond extract
  • 2 1/2 cup, minus 1 Tablespoon, all-purpose flour
  • 1 Tablespoon cocoa
  • 1 cup ground cocoa roasted almonds*
  • 1/4 cup powdered sugar, for sprinkling
*I used my blender to grind up the almonds.  You can use a food processor, just make sure not to go too far and make almond butter.  You can also use almond flour for a finer texture, and of course non-cocoa roasted almonds if you don't have them.

Directions:
  1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
  2. Cream together the butter and sugar.  Add the extracts and mix.
  3. Add the flour and ground almonds, mixing thoroughly.  I added 1/2 cup at a time, alternating between flour and almonds, and mixing with each addition.  Add the cocoa and mix thoroughly.
  4. Take a Tablespoon of dough and roll it into a crescent shape, placing it onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  The cookies won't spread, but leave some space.
  5. Bake for 15-20 minutes.
  6. Using a sifter or fine strainer, sprinkle powdered sugar over the cookies.  Allow to cool and enjoy.
Note: Next time I try this, I'll make the cookies smaller, at least half the size would be perfectly acceptable.

2 comments:

  1. I've never seen cocoa-roasted almonds. Is it as simple as roasting them in some cocoa powder?

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  2. I got mine at the grocery store, from Emerald. But I'm sure you can do it yourself with relative ease. Actually, I got these at one of those wholesale clubs where you get huge boxes of things, hence my tendency to toss them into various recipes ; )

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