Shakarlama: Almond Cookies

Cardamom and nuts

1. Almond cookies with the aroma of cardamom are delicious. Have them with tea, strong coffee, or just nibble them while lost in thought. Cardamom is the small fruit of a herbaceous plant of the ginger family. It has a remarkable camphor-like aroma and is among the quite expensive spices. You need only a little cardamom for the cookies.

2. Prepare the cardamom: shell the needed number of pods and grind the seeds to a fine dust in a mortar right before using. Cardamom loses its aroma very quickly, so it’s better not to buy it ready-ground.

   

3. Take fresh almonds and sort through the walnuts. Good cookies depend on good, fresh almonds. An almond is not a nut, as is commonly thought, but the kernel of the pit of a fruit quite similar to an apricot or a peach. For the cookies, buy almonds from this year’s harvest, not last year’s or of unknown origin. Like any seed, almonds go rancid.

   

   Walnuts should be shelled kernels, with no bits of shell or membrane left. It’s worth taking the time to sort through them by hand so that no fragments get into the cookies. If one gets between your teeth, you’ll have problems.

   

4. Peel the almonds: pour boiling water over them for a few minutes, and the skins will slip off at a touch. But don’t leave the nuts in the water for long, or they will get soggy.

   

5. Toast the walnut kernels a little in a dry skillet over medium heat, stirring, or in the microwave, until they give off a characteristic nutty smell. Once the nuts have cooled, rub them a little between your palms so that some of the dark skin comes off.

   

6. Chop the almonds and nuts. How fine is up to you, but larger pieces are preferable. You can chop the almonds and nuts with a knife or grind them in a blender, and you end up with pieces of different sizes, from almost dust to, sometimes, whole kernels.

Dough

1. Beat the eggs and sugar with a mixer until foamy. There’s no need to overdo it or rush the process. Eggs mix with sugar very easily.

   

3. Add a third of the sifted flour and mix with the mixer until smooth.

   

   Then add the chopped almonds and nuts and the ground cardamom, about a third of a teaspoon. Cardamom is a very fragrant spice, so try not to add too much.

   

4. Melt the butter, pour it into the dough and mix. Add the sour cream and keep kneading, gradually adding the rest of the flour. The dough is already quite thick, so use the spiral dough hooks.

   

   It is convenient to knead the dough with a mixer, because this is quite laborious and your hands tire quickly. Keep adding flour until the dough is firm but soft and stops sticking to your hands.

   

Shaping and baking

1. Roll out the dough on the table with a rolling pin, though it is just as easy to do it with your palms. The dough should be no more than 15 mm thick. Use cookie cutters or an upside-down glass to cut cookie rounds from the sheet of dough. Reroll the scraps and cut out more rounds.

   

2. Place the raw cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake in an oven preheated to 180°C. If you can, put a silicone baking mat under the paper. A metal baking sheet bakes the bottoms of the cookies harder, while the silicone layer lets them bake more evenly.

   

   The baking time varies a lot depending on the dough, usually from 25 to 45 mins. You can judge by the color of the bottom of the cookies: as soon as it starts to brown, the cookies are done.

Serving

1. Lay the finished cookies out on a cloth and let them cool. As my grandmother used to say, don’t grab them hot.

   

2. They go wonderfully with tea or morning coffee. And the aroma! Don’t expect cakes or buns. These are fairly dry cookies, not shortbread, and quite dense, slightly reminiscent of crackers, but very fragrant.