This is the second traditional sweet that we make for Christmas. Nice butter cookies with almonds, smothered in powdered sugar.
Ingredients: 600 gr. real butter (if you wish you may use margarine or half and half) About 1.200 gr. flour 200 gr blanched almonds 1 teaspoon baking powder 2 egg yolks 1/3 teaspoon vanilla 50 gr. powdered sugar 50 gr. rum The zest of one orange The juice of one orange Powdered sugar for dusting
Directions:
Put the butter with the 50 gr powdered sugar in the mixer and beat them at a high speed for 20 – 30 minutes. This is imperative because this way the cookies will be light.
In the meantime prepare the almonds. Scatter them in a cookie pan, place the pan in the oven and roast at about 160o C. Watch them carefully because they burn easily. Take them out of the oven and when they cool down chop them up roughly. Mix the baking powder with the flour.
When the butter is ready, add the eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. Add the flour by spoonfuls, alternatively with the orange juice until they are finished. Add the almonds and the run and beat for another 5 minutes.
Line a cookie pan with greaseproof paper. Take bits of dough, make small round balls pressing their top lightly with your finger and lay them in the pan. Bake in a preheated oven at 170o C for 15 – 20 minutes. Then you bake the second batch, until all the dough is finished.
Leave the cookies to cool down completely. Put powdered sugar on a plate and roll the cookies in the sugar. Place them on a serving platter in rows and dust them with more powdered sugar. Repeat until all the cookies are covered with sugar. There will be about 70 – 80 cookies depending on the size.