Almond Cookies

         This is my first bookmarked post. But i did not follow the original recipe completely. For the first time i saw the pistachio cardamom cookies in Ramya's (Hot from my oven) blog...i was totally impressed on the recipe and her picture n as well the presentation.Thank you Ramya for the recipe. I combined her recipe with the almond cookies recipe from allrecipes.com.I daringly tried this and the outcome was so perfect,super n excellent. It tasted like butter biscuits n melts in mouth like butter. My kids liked them a lot n they finish it in 2 days :) They love homemade cookies more than the store bought one.I used raw almonds you can also use the blanched/roasted almonds.I ground the almonds coarsely so its very difficult for me to get shape n hold the dough firmly.But it also very nice to have a crunchy bite of nuts...


Ingredients

1. All Purpose flour   1 and 1/4 cups
2. Rice flour    1/3 cup
3. Unsalted butter   1/2 cup
4. Powdered sugar/Icing sugar  1/2 cup  
5. Baking powder   1/4 tsp
6. Salt   1/2 tsp
7. Egg White  from 1 egg
8. Almond extract   1/2 tsp (can use vanilla extract also)
9. Almonds   1/3 cup(lightly toasted)
10. Cardamom     8-10

Method

• Sift the flours ,add salt ,baking powder and mix well and keep aside.
• Grind almonds and cardamom together to a fine powder or little coarse powder n keep aside.
• In a mixing bowl,cream butter and sugar at medium speed using hand electric mixer,followed by egg white and almond extract.
• Stir flour (all purpose flour and rice flour sifted ) and grounded almond in to the butter cream mixture.
• Mix everything well and cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for about 2 hours.
• Preheat oven to 375 degree Fahrenheit.
• After that,divide the dough in to 3 equal parts,place one part in a parchment paper in a firm platform and place another parchment paper over the dough and press it,using a rolling pin roll the dough firmly to 1/4 " thick ..then remove the outer paper and using cookie cutter or any rim of a can or bottle cut them  OR simply take 2 spoons of dough,shape them in to small balls,about 1/2" inch thick and press gently using a glass bottom and place 2 inches apart  in to the baking tray greased or lined with parchment paper.
• And transfer the sheet to the baking tray  and bake it for 15-18 minutes or till the edges n bottom turn light golden color.
• Allow to cool them on wire racks... my kids..they don't have patience till it get cooled  n they started munching hot.... hot .... :)