Posts Tagged: Almond

Recipes — No Comments
22
Dec 09

New Love of an Old Cookie

Almond-Crescents-2

My mom’s traditional holiday cookie recipes (which I will post later in the week) are for chocolate dipped shortbread and classic, very chocolatey chocolate chip. She’s also been making almond crescents for a few years since my dad expressed a desire for the cookies his grandmother used to make during the holidays when he was young. And that’s what the holiday season is all about: good food, and family.

Admitedly, I have never been a fan of the almond crescent. They were always too dry for me, and I’m a chocoholic which made my sugar consumption priority the other two cookie varieties. This year, my mom selected on online recipe from Vanilla Garlic posted on Simply Recipes and these cookies have converted me to an almond crescent fan. My mom made a few slight changes to the recipe (used very finely ground almonds instead of almond flour, and covered the cookies entirely in powdered sugar instead of just dusting) and I am completely addicted. I cannot stop eating them.

I find myself craving them in the middle of the day. When I reach for the plate of cookies, I take one of each of the other two cookies and three or four of the almond crescents. They’re moist, and have fantastic flavor. Bravo, Mom.

Happy Holidays everyone! Be sure to eat your almond crescents!

Almond Crescent Cookies Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 cup of butter, room temperature
  • 2/3 cup of sugar
  • 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon of almond extract
  • 2 1/2 cups of flour
  • 1 cup of almond flour (can substitute ground almonds*)
  • 1/4 cup of powdered sugar for sprinkling

*You can use slivered, blanched almonds and grind them up, but you will have a very crumbly, hard to work with dough. It’ll still taste good though.

Method

1 Cream the butter and the sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the extracts and mix.

2 Add the flour and almond flour. Mix thoroughly.

3 Take generous tablespoons of the dough (it will be slightly crumbly) and roll it into a small ball, about an inch in diameter, and then shape into a crescent shape. Place onto parchment paper and bake at 350°F for 15-20 minutes or until a light golden brown.

4 Dust with powdered sugar.

For added decadence let the cookies cool and dip one end of them into some melted chocolate, then let the chocolate harden.

Makes 2 1/2 dozen cookies.

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Chocolate / Food — No Comments
27
Apr 09

What NOT to buy

So far I have made this a forum for all things that I like and want to share. And when it comes to food and other fun stuff, there isn’t much I wouldn’t share. 

I find myself in a very different place, writing my first “Buyer Beware” post. But I think it’s equally important for me to share the things that aren’t quite as good as the others, so even if you decide you simply MUST try it for yourself, you have been warned. 

Previously, I hailed the Theo 3400 Phinney Bread and Chocolate bar as a surprisingly pleasant; reminiscent of my childhood Nestle Crunch Bar experiences. When faced with the decision to buy another such bar or to dive into another culinary adventure with a different bar, naturally I had to sample all of the possible offerings before coming back to the B&C that I had enjoyed so much. 

My second selection from the 3400 Phinney line was the Fig, Fennel, and Almond bar, and it was highly disappointing. 

The name drew me in, and I was excited about it. I had never seen a combination like that before. These were all ingredients that I liked, and flavors that had satisfied me in the past. However, when combined together in this bar, the overall taste and experience is off-putting. 

The flavors are potent, and slightly overwhelming. While I normally find textural and flavor variety  interesting and thought-provoking, this bar did not seem well thought out. Some of the fig pieces are grainy, and the fennel pieces are stronger in certain areas of the bar. The chocolate is bitter but slightly nutty itself. All of these flavors together are too much. I would normally write more in-depth about the actual bar itself, but quite frankly, it was just bad, and I don’t really want to talk about it. 

After about 20 minutes, the tastes still clung to my tongue, and instead of wanting more, I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of the bar. 

3400-phinney-fig-fennel-almond

 

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