Tahini Almond Cookies

Israeli Dessert

TAHINI ALMOND COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

⅔ cup butter
¾ cup sugar
⅔ cup almond meal or almond flour*
2 cups flour
1 cup tahini
⅛ teaspoon salt
½ tablespoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons water (perhaps a bit more)
2 tablespoons almond slivers

* = Found online or in ethnic or specialty supermarkets. Or simply grind blanched, slivered almonds until you get the consistency of almond meal or almond flour.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric beater
2 cookie sheets
parchment paper
food processor or spice grinder (If you can’t find almond meal.)

Makes 48 cookies. Takes 45 minutes to make plus 15 minutes to cool.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Add butter and sugar to large mixing bowl. Blend with electric beater set on medium. Add flour and almond meal. Blend with electric beater set on medium. Add tahini and vanilla extract. Add salt, vanilla extract, and water. Blend again until you a soft, thick dough. (Add a little water at a time if dough is crumbly.)

Form 48 dough balls about 1″ across. Flatten dough balls until they become ½” thick circles. Gently press 2 almonds into the top of each dough circle. Place parchment paper on each cookie sheet. Add 24 dough circles to each cookie sheet. Bake for 15 minutes at 325 degrees or until cookies turn golden brown. Cool completely before serving to prevent them from falling apart.

TIDBITS

1) Four-leaf clovers are lucky, but, they’re hard to find. So maximize your good fortune by doing the following instead: place a clover on a plate or use a plate with a clover design, point the clover to the right, and surround the clover with four tahini-almond cookies. Like in the above picture. Doing all this but with four leaves on your clover, will make you the luckiest person ever. Now you know.

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., fashionisto

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.