Monday 15 January 2007

Almond Biscuits


During the last Chinese New Year, I was treated to a jar of very tasty almond biscuits. They were homemade biscuits which looked very much like biscottis but were much thinner. In fact, if I remembered correctly, they were almost wafer thin. One of my family members bought them through a friend. I have been looking for these biscuits lately but they don't seem to be available in bakery shops or supermarkets. I was very happy when I came across this almond biscuits recipe from a Chinese cookbook. From the picture it looked very much like those biscuits which I have been craving for. I tried this out immediately after I bought a packet of whole almonds.

The recipe is rather straight forward and simple. The only difficult part is cutting the dough into thin slices. You will need to use a sharp knife to cut through the almonds without squashing the dough. Furthermore, the dough gets soften up rather fast in our local climate. As such, it is not easy to cut slices of even thickness.

The biscuits are rather crispy with a very light buttery flavour and not too sweet. I have given some to my sisters to try, will ask them for their comments. I do not know whether these come close to the original biscuits, as it was almost a year ago, I have actually forgotten how they tasted liked!

Ingredients:

100g almond, whole
130g butter, soften at room temperature
100g caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
270g cake flour

Method:

  1. Soak almonds for 20 mins in warm water. Drain and set aside.
  2. Cream butter with caster sugar until white and fluffy.
  3. Add in the egg gradually, mix well each time egg is added.
  4. Add in sieved flour together with the almonds. Mix into a dough. Shape the dough into a rectangular block and wrap with cling wrap. Chill the dough in the fridge till it is harden.
  5. Cut dough into thin slices (about 5mm thick). Lay on baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake in preheated oven at 180 degC for 20 mins or until biscuits become golden brown. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely before storing in an air-tight container.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi there, your recipe stated 1 egg.. is there an error? thanks

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Anonymous, there is no error with this...only 1 egg is needed :)

Anonymous said...

Hi there, I've made lemon biscuits with a similar dough - replace the almonds with about the zest from a half dozen lemons (more or less to taste).
When it came to cutting them up nice and thin, I simply froze the dough into a number of small logs. That way I could pull one lot out, slice away til it thawed out too much, slip that back in the freezer and pull out another one. Plus it means you can make a double batch or so and leave the dough ready for next time you want biscuits!

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Anonymous, thanks for sharing your tip! It sounds like this recipe can be doubled up as a refrigerator cookie dough :)

An said...

hi.. i just made these and the cutting was very difficult so i just made them in the shape of cookies. :)

and they were wonderful, light and perfect with morning tea. thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

Hi. Your recipes look very nice and interesting and too good for someone who is home baking. My question to you is: you use 'cake flour' in quite a few of them. Is this plain all purpose flour? or the self raising one? or all purpose with baking powder only or all purpose with baking powder and baking soda?

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Anonymous, Cake flour is not plain all purpose flour or self raising flour. It doesn't contains baking powder or baking soda. It has a lower gluten level than plain flour. You can read about the different types of flour from baking websites such as: baking911.com or joyofbaking.com. Hope this helps.