Full Moon Recipe for January: Quick Almond Cookies with Almond Glaze

It’s time for another recipe! First, the recipe. Then, me blathering onward about my occasionally questionable culinary capabilities and the memories this particular treat holds for me.

• The Ingredients
  • For the Cookies:
    • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
    • 3/4 cup white sugar
    • 1 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
    • 2 cups all purpose flour
    • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
    • 1/4 teaspoon fine grain salt
    • sliced almonds
  • For the Glaze:
    • 1/2 cup powdered sugar
    • 1 teaspoon almond extract*
    • 3 teaspoons water*
• The Way of Preparing
  1. Preheat oven to 400°F, 200°C, or gas mark 6.
  2. Cream together the butter, almond extract, and sugar in a large bowl until very light in color.
  3. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Add to the creamed mixture a few tablespoons at a time and beat until well combined with each edition.
  4. Scoop and roll into one inch balls and flatten with the bottom of a glass. They should be thick and stout (like me!) before going into the oven.
  5. Prep two pans with parchment or a silicone mat each.
  6. Place the cookies about 1 1/2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.
  7. Bake for six to eight minutes.
  8. Cool cookies on the pan until cool to the touch and then press a few sliced almonds into each cookie.
  9. For the glaze: whisk together the glaze ingredients.
  10. Drizzle the cooled cookies with the glaze.
• Notes
  • *I use amaretto (Disaronno, specifically) instead of the extract, but it does have a bit of a sweeter taste to it.
  • Make it orange! Just use orange extract instead of almond in the cookies and glaze, use orange juice instead of water in the glaze, and add a teaspoon of orange zest to the cookie batter. I also add a few drops of yellow and a drop of red food coloring to make them orange in color as well as taste.
  • The cookies will not look done. There is no “golden brown” here.
  • To keep cookies baking evenly, place a pizza stone on the bottom rack and keep it in there with the cookies to keep the oven temperature more even.
  • Store layered with parchment paper in an airtight container.

So. With these cookies, they are the reason I love baking with silicone mats. They’re not quite a sticky cookie to make, but they are mad quick and easy when you use either parchment paper or silicone mats.

Cakes and ale! Well, cookies and diet cream soda in my case. Yes, I know there is a certain irony to having full-sugar cookies with diet soda. When I make them these days, I do use a 1:1 ratio sugar substitute because of my blood sugar issues. For this particular recipe, almonds are always an edible prosperity spell for me. According to Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, almonds are often used in prosperity and money spells. So these are a great recipe to make before doing a prosperity spell to reinforce the spell afterwards.

Blessed Be and happy baking!