This Almond Cranberry Cookies is taken from 孟老师的100道手工饼干. I substituted shortening with butter. I wonder if it makes the difference. I find that the cookies are not light and crisp (酥) enough. But the toasted almond gives the cookies a very nice fragrance and it tastes good with the slight sweet/sour taste with cranberry.
Almond Cranberry Cookies 杏仁蔓越莓酥饼
Ingredients (about 35 pieces):
35g dried cranberries
35g almond flakes (toasted at 150 deg C till light golden brown)
100g cake flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
35g icing sugar
15g corn flour
15g ground almond
50g shortening (I use cold butter)
25g egg white
Method:
1. Blend or chop finely dried cranberries and toasted almond together until fine.
2. Sift cake flour, baking powder, icing sugar and corn flour into a bowl. Then add in ground almond.
3. Rub in shortening into the flour mixture till fine crumbs are formed.
4. Add in egg white and the cranberry-almond mixture from step 1. Press to form a soft dough, do not knead.
5. Chill the dough for about 2 hours. Roll out the dough into 0.5cm thickness. Cut out cookies with cookie cutters.
6. Bake at 170 deg C for 20 minutes till light golden brown.
Recipe adapted from: 孟老师的100道手工饼干
The other cookies which I prefer over the above one is this Cat's Tongue Cookies from Carol's 烘焙新手必备的第一本书. When done correctly, the cookies are light and crispy and very hard to stop eating it! The only wrong thing I did was my fault actually. I ran out of piping bags and had to use a disposable type of plastic bag and resulted in horrible piping. My cookies don't look like cat's tongue at all. ;p
Cat's Tongue Cookies 猫舌饼干
Ingredients (about 30 pieces):
60g unsalted butter, softened
35g icing sugar
1/8 tsp salt
60g egg white
60g cake flour
zest from 1 lemon (I omitted)
Method:
1. Whisk butter and icing sugar till light and fluffy.
2. Add in egg white gradually in 4 separate additions.
3. Add in sifted flour in 2 separate additions.
4. Lastly, add in lemon zest and salt.
5. Fill the batter into piping bag with tip opening of 0.7cm in diameter.
6. Pipe out the batter into lengths of 6cm, leaving some space in between the cookies.
7. Bake at 160 deg C for about 10 minutes till the edges become light golden brown*.
*Note: Make sure the cookies are baked till dry, if not the cookies will turn chewy instead of crispy when cooled. To do that, you can either leave the cookies in the oven to cool in the residual heat after turning off the oven. Or bake the cookies at a lower heat of 120 deg C for another 10 minutes.
Recipe adapted from: 烘焙新手必备的第一本书 by Carol
I am submitting this post to Chinese New Year Delights 2013 hosted by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover.