Chinese Almond Cookies
Happy Year of the Rabbit!
I know I’m a day late, but pulling together a 35 slide powerpoint lab meeting presentation prevented me from posting this yesterday. But don’t let the passing of New Year’s day prevent you from enjoying these buttery little cookies- they are quick to pull together and are perfect on non-New Year’s days, particularly with tea.
These cookies remind me of the favorites we would get from Chinese bakeries in San Francisco when I was little- buttery and a bit crumbly, just slightly sweet, with a lovely subtle almond flavor. And happily crinkled tops.
So happy.
Here’s to the new year, may you have the best health, love, and happiness in this year!
Orange Macaroons
There has been a tragedy in my kitchen.
Has this ever happened to anybody?! The metal whisk part totally separated from the metal rod!!! Maybe this is the Kitchen God’s way of telling me to invest in a stand mixer?
Luckily, I was far enough along in the recipe to continue through to the sweet and almond-y end! These almond-flavored macaroons- think nutty sister to coconut macaroons (not to be confused with the ethereally light meringue-based macarons)- are concentrated vehicles of sweet almond paste and orange zest.
The soft and slightly sticky dough is rolled out into long strands in powdered sugar to give each cookie a nice sweet coating. The cookies are then rolled into little balls and allowed to rest on the cookie sheet for 30 minutes. This allows the dough to form a “skin” on the exterior surface, which will translate into a thin crispy shell surrounding once baked.
When bitten into, the crisp exterior gives way to a dense, soft and chewy cookie that is crazy intense in almond and citrus flavor, but still manages to not be too sweet. This keeps you coming back for more… and more… AND MORE!!!! Of all the cookies I have ever baked, these cookies are the easiest to eat a dozen without even realizing it! Thank goodness this recipe makes like 50 cookies!
Orange Macaroons
adapted from Martha Stewart, via Patrick Lemble, and a great lemon version at 101cookbooks
makes 4-5 dozen
2 large egg whites (I found I only needed one)
1/8 teaspoon pure almond extract
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted, plus more for rolling and coating
1 pound almond paste
Zest of 1 orange
1 tablespoon orange liqueur, such as Grand Marnier
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine 1 egg white and almond extract. Add confectioners’ sugar and almond paste; beat until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add orange zest and orange liqueur; beat to combine, about 1 minute.
- Lightly dust work surface with confectioners’ sugar. Turn dough out onto work surface; roll into two 3/4-inch-thick logs, about 18 inches long. Cut each log crosswise into 30 1/2-inch pieces. Roll each piece into a ball.
- Lightly beat remaining egg white. (I found that the dough was really really moist and did not need the extra egg white.) Coat each ball with egg white and roll in sugar, tapping to remove excess; transfer to prepared baking sheets. Let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.
- Pinch each piece of dough with three fingers to form an irregular pyramid shape. Bake until lightly golden, about 15-18 minutes. Transfer baking sheet to a wire rack and cool completely. Store in an airtight container up to 1 week (but they won’t last that long!).
Cherry-Almond Clafoutis
Clafoutis. Pronounced: CLAH-FOO-TEE.
Kind of sounds like some kind of horrific fungal disease you could catch by walking barefoot in a public gym bathroom, doesn’t it? Luckily, it’s not!
A clafoutis is an egg-y, custard-y French dessert, traditionally made with cherries, but easily adaptable to any fruit you wish. Because it’s summer and I’m smitten with sweet cherries (but not so much their price per pound…), I made cherry clafoutis with a hint of almond flavor.
As they bake, the clafoutis puff up to monstrous heights, but unfortunately, even wonderful French desserts cannot defy the law of gravity forever, and eventually fall back to a more humble height (right, soufflés?). But that’s ok, because they are still tasty! Clafoutis are so simple to make and its simplicity really allows the fruit to shine, plus, they are not too sweet so you never feel too guilty consuming them (even for breakfast)!
Almond Cake
I’m drooling a bit, just thinking again about this dessert. For those almond-lovers out there, this is for you. It’s a slightly dense, sweet and buttery cake with INTENSE almond flavor; it can be a perfect after-dinner bite… or an early morning wake-up bite… or late afternoon tea-time bite. Throw on some toasted almonds, dust generously with powdered sugar, and a quick fruity sauce and it can also be a fabulously romantic Valentine’s dessert.
The cake is simple, only seven ingredients, one of them being almond paste. Almond paste is the deliciousness also found in my favorite pastries: almond croissants and bear claws. I bought a tube of almond paste awhile ago for the sole purpose of baking this cake.. and a year or so later, finally opened up the tube to bake this cake. I found that 1/2 the tube was soft and rather pliable, while 1/4 was almost rock solid, and 1/4 existed somewhere between the two consistencies. I thought briefly about sprinkling it with some water and softening it in the microwave (à la brown sugar), but I figured that it would be more time efficient to forge ahead with the first step of the recipe and use my electric mixer to beat it into paste-y submission. I mixed… and mixed… and only succeeded in breaking the paste down into hard clumps of various sizes and wildly flinging said clumps out of the bowl to distant parts of the kitchen. At this point I could have taken a hint and dumped it all back into a heat-proof bowl and zapped it in the microwave, but stubbornness prevailed and I started the second step and added the butter. A few minutes later, after scooping wayward buttered almond paste particles back into the bowl, I managed to get a somewhat fluffy butter mixture with much smaller almond paste bits and at this point, conceded defeat to the almond paste and just finished the batter. I spooned the slightly curdled-looking batter into mini-tart pans (new kitchen friends!) to bake, and sent a fervent prayer to the baking gods that the pebbles of almond paste would melt into the cake crumb.
Perhaps the baking gods took pity on me, or perhaps this was all normal almond paste behavior, because I ended up with beautifully almond flavored cakes without a trace of those hard almond chunks. I threw together handful of raspberries, (seedless) raspberry preserves, and some orange juice to make a quick raspberry sauce, but you could imagine all kinds of fruit based sauces (compotes, coulis, or CHOCOLATE) that would complement the cake nicely. This cake is so very very good, and if something so awesome could result from such a fiasco starting off, then this indeed is a great recipe to have in your arsenal.
Almond Cake
adapted Smitten Kitchen, adapted from Thomas Keller’s Bouchon
Butter and flour for the pan(s)
7 ounces almond paste
1/4 cup granulated sugar
4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and chilled
2 tablespoons honey
3 large eggs
2 tablespoons amaretto, plus additional for brushing (I didn’t have any, and substituted with 1 tablespoon almond extract)
1/3 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
pinch of salt
1/3-1/3 cup sliced almonds, toasted
confectioners’ sugar
Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour four 4 by 1 3/4 inch high mini springform pans, or butter and flour the bottom and sides of an 8 inch round cake pan. If using the 8 inch pan, line the bottom with a circle of parchment paper. (I used five 4 by 1 inch tart pans so each cake ended up a bit thinner).
- Place the almond paste and sugar in a large bowl. Begin to cream the mixture on low speed to break up the almond paste, then increase the speed to medium for about 2 minutes, or until the paste is broken into fine particles.
- Add the butter and mix for 4-5 minutes, or until the mixture is light in color and airy. It is important to mix long enough or the cake will have a dense texture.
- Mix in the honey, then add the eggs one at a time, beating until each one is fully incorporated before adding the next. Add amaretto (if using), flour, and a pinch of salt, and mix just to combine.
- Scrape the batter into the prepared pan(s) and smooth the top. Bake the small cakes for about 15 minutes (mine took about 25, not sure why…), the large one for about 25 minutes, or until the cake is golden and springs back when pressed. Transfer to a rack to cool.
- Brush the top of the cake(s) with amaretto and sprinkle with the toasted almonds. Dust with confectioners’ sugar. The cake(s) can be stored, well-wrapped, at room-temperature for up to 2 days. Serve with whipped cream, crème fraîche, fruit-based sauce, or fruit.
Orange Almond Madeleines
You can never have too much of a good thing…
especially if they are these lovely seashell-shaped cake cookies. Yum.
I know that I made madeleines less than a week ago… but I was anxious to try out another recipe with a different flavor profile. These were better than my first attempt: they “humped” up nicely, had a bit more flour to butter ratio so were a bit more cake-y, and the glaze, oh the glaze! I loved the subtle flavor of orange and almond in the plain madeleines (you almost didn’t feel guilty after devouring a few straight from the pan), but addition of a sweet orange glaze pretty much sky-rocketed these babies to pure awesomeness.
Orange Almond Madeleines
adapted from David Lebovitz’s Lemon-Glazed Madeleines
makes 24 cookies
3 eggs, room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
1/8 rounded teaspoon salt
1/2 cup almond meal (finely ground almonds)
3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder (optional)
9 tablespoons melted butter, cooled to room temperature
1 tsp almond extract
zest of one orange
Glaze:
1 tablespoon orange juice
1/4-1/2 cup powdered sugar (depending on how thick you want your glaze)
- Whip eggs, sugar, and salt in a bowl, until frothy and thickened (about 5 minutes).
- Sift flour and baking soda (if using) into the batter. Add the almond meal. Fold gently with a spatula (I did this until the dry ingredients were mostly combined).
- Add orange zest and almond extract to the butter, then add the butter mixture to the batter a few spoonfuls at a time. Fold gently until the butter has been incorporated.
- Chill the batter in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Grease a madeleine pan with cooking spray, or buttering each mold and dusting with flour.
- Spoon batter into each mold until about 3/4 full. (The batter was a thick paste at this point, so I just spooned enough so that it looked like it would almost fill the mold if it were more liquid-y.)
- Bake for 8-9 minutes, until the sides are beginning to get a nice golden brown. Remove from the oven and remove cookies from the pan onto a cooling rack.
- Make the glaze while the cookies are cooling. Sift the powdered sugar into the orange juice, and whisk until smooth. Add more powdered sugar for a thicker glaze, add water (or more orange juice) to thin out the glaze. Dip the madeleines into the glaze (both sides if desired), then place back onto the cooling rack (with a baking sheet underneath to catch the dripping glaze) and let the glaze set.
* These lovelies are seriously best eaten the day of, when they are crispy on the outside and tender and moist on the inside. This meant there were 24 cookies to share between me, Andreas, and a happy weekend house-guest. To ensure that we each didn’t end up eating a daily caloric intake’s worth of madeleines, I also gave some to our neighboring friends. If you store them, I have found that they get soft and squishy (not so delicious) if you cover them, so we left them uncovered overnight. The next morning, they were no longer crispy on the outside and were a tad bit drier, but even so, the last was devoured before it was 24 hours old…
