Thanks to my friend Jess for this great recipe, which she’s altered from one she read on NPR. These cookies are always a big hit, with gluten-free and gluten-friendly eaters alike!
Me want coooookies:
- 4 cups almond flour/almond meal (you can process your own if you want a rougher texture)
- 1 1/4 cups white sugar
- 2 cups powdered sugar, plus ~1/2 cup extra for rolling the cookies
- 3 egg whites
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Beat your egg whites in a bowl until they form soft peaks when you pull your whisk or spoon out of them (have a look at the picture). This will take a few minutes with a hand mixer or standing mixer, but it will take forever if you do it by hand. My arm nearly fell off. So if you have a mixer, put it to work!
Once the egg whites are ready, add the extracts, salt, sugars, and almond meal to your bowl and mix everything together by hand. At first it will feel like there isn’t enough moisture for everything to adhere, but give it a minute or two, and it should come together to form a nice dough ball. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough ball for 2 hours.
Now it’s time to form the dough into cookies. This type of cookie is often made into half-moon shapes or S-shapes, but I’ve also done them in the shape of stars, spheres, and leaves. Whatever you choose, be sure that your cookies are between 1 and 1.5 inches thick–this is to ensure that there’s enough in the middle for the cookies to remain soft on the inside while the outside gets a bit crunchy. Once your cookies are formed, roll each generously in powdered sugar, and place them on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper.
Bake the cookies at 325°F for 30-35 minutes, until the bottom edge turns light brown. Then take them out of the oven, and sprinkle them with more powdered sugar (you’ll do this while the cookies are hot so that the sugar sticks). All done!
PhD Kitchen 