February 27 & 28 - Chai Spiced Almond Cookies

WOULDN'T YOU KNOW IT...

So the French dinner has now come and gone.  YIPPEE!!  That means I am free to lounge around and...I mean...to look for other opportunites to supplement my income. 

The dinner went really well.  The dishes didn't look quite like what I had planned, but they were good nonetheless.   I brought my camera with me, but got so busy in the hubbub that I didn't take any pictures.   I know that some of the students did take some pics, so I will post them once I can round them up. 

THE RECIPE

Ingredients:

Butter: $1.89

Powdered Sugar: Had

Vanilla extract: Had

Almond Extract: Had

Allspice: Had

Cardamom: Had

Cinnamon: Had

Salt: Had

Flour: Had

Almonds: Had

Total: $1.89

Okay, the first thing I noticed about this recipe is that there is no egg or baking soda or baking powder.  No leavening agent what-so-ever.  So, what we're dealing with here is a basic shortbread cookie of some sort.  I'm thinking these will go good with a mug of hot tea. 

Also, 25 minutes of baking is way too long for these!  I hate burnt cookies (or even slightly burnt).  Yuck.  You'll only need about 15 minutes (maybe 18) in total.

The Results:

Fast:  Anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes depending on whether or not your butter is softened.

Easy:  Really really easy.  Cookies in general are not hard, but these are just dump and mix.

Fresh:  I'll give it a yes...although I was on the border here.  I like the idea of chai cookie because of the spices, but the texture is a little off-putting.  A little too dry to eat by itself.

Overall:  These cookies are good.  If you're going to serve them with tea, skip the coating in powdered sugar.   Make sure you use a neutral flavored tea too because these cookies pack a chai punch. 

MAD SCIENTIST TIME:  I only baked 8 cookies in order to take the picture you see above.  I wanted to see what would happen if I mixed an egg into the rest of the cookie dough batter.    The cookies turned out a lot softer, but they lost a lot of the chai flavor.  So, I guess, leave the egg out. 

Alright.  I'm taking a much needed day off tomorrow to recollect my energies...so no post.  But I'll be back on Tuesday with a red meat recipe!!