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Almond
Crescents
Ingredients:
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
pinch salt
1-1/4 cups butter or margarine, softened
1 cup icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup ground almonds
Preparation:
- In a mixer or food processor
cream butter and icing sugar. Add almond
extract and vanilla. Gradually beat in flour, salt and ground
almonds.
- Form into dough, wrap and
chill 1/2 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 325 F
(160 C).
- Form into 1 inch (2.5 cm)
balls. Shape balls into crescents.
- Place on ungreased baking
sheets and bake one dozen at a time for about
12 to 15 minutes.
- Cool on wire rack.
- Drizzle with melted
semi-sweet chocolate.
Makes 6
dozen cookies.
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Did You Know?
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Although popularly
referred to as a nut, the edible part of the almond is botanically not
a true nut, but the seed of a drupe (a botanic name for a type of
fruit), which consists of an outer hull and a hard shell with the seed
inside. Shelling almonds refers to removing the shell to reveal the
seed. Almonds are commonly sold shelled, i.e. after the shells are
removed, or unshelled, i.e. with the shells still attached. Blanched
almonds are shelled almonds that have been treated with hot water to
soften the seedcoat, which is then removed to reveal the white embryo.
There are two forms of the plant, one (often with white flowers)
producing sweet almonds, and the other (often with pink flowers)
producing bitter almonds.
The bitter almond is rather broader and shorter than the sweet almond,
and contains about 50% of the fixed oil which also occurs in sweet
almonds. It also contains the enzyme emulsin which, in the presence of
water, acts on a soluble glucoside, amygdalin, yielding glucose,
cyanide and the essential oil of bitter almonds, which is nearly pure
benzaldehyde. Bitter almonds may yield from 4–9 mg of hydrogen cyanide
per almond. Extract of bitter almond was once used medicinally, but
even in small doses effects are severe and in larger doses can be
deadly; the cyanide must be removed before consumption.
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