Almond Shortbread With Toasted Flour

 

Almond shortbread or known as "putih salju" (snow white) or "putri salju" (snow princes) is a classic cookies served in Lebaran or else, not being served at all as it lasted before lebaran. It has addiction factor as well as melting point. I made just day before Lebaran and my kids were munching on it non stop before the guesses. I made one more batch and hide some from my special cookies monsters, for photo shot purpose.

I remember the time when I was in year 9, reading a pull-out recipe sponsored by quite famous margarine brand in Indonesia. As a young baker I wonder why would recipe ask for toasted flour ? -sangrai- I didn't think much, really, I have got large pan and wooden spoon in my right hand, toasted the flour straight away on stove, until it changed its colour slightly darker , approximately 15 minutes, kept stirring, seriously... it's my first time, things have to be handle with extra care. While flour still warm  I rolled with other ingredients and voila... impressed with the result. Full flavour cookies with less ingredients. Hmmm ... I wonder why... My thought was it might be because in Indonesia flour traps more moisture, when you loose some you will bake less .....(hhmm... really?)


Now, I live in different part of the world called Victoria, which is known as dry whether state, I change my way of thinking about this toasted flour, it's simply cook the flour before hand, it's like when you bake with nuts but you toasted it before mix with cake mixture. Totally different taste.  Super delicate cookies worth to try. Easy to make, seriously I will not be baking anything two complicated these days a pile of reports will be patiently waiting for me.

Almond Shortbread With Toasted Flour

source morning song

250 gr toasted flour, sifted
200 gr butter
1 yolk
50 gr almond ground (here I used 75 gr)
1 tsp vanilla paste

Icing mixture to dust/roll

Methods,
Place toasted flour, ground almond and butter in the bowl of a food processor and process to combine. Add egg yolk and vanilla essence, and process until all ingredients just form a ball. Shape onto crescent, and place on an oven tray, bake to preheated oven for 10-15 minutes or until beginning to colour. When it is cooked let it cool before roll it to an icing mixture.

Just another look from my spring garden

 The last ranunculus... see you next year