Diamond-Edged, Melt-in-Your-Mouth Butter Cookies - from Bakewise by Shirley Corriher
Is it weird that the more I
love something, the less often I tend to make it? There’s a reason for that.
Yup, you guessed it. It’s because I would eat it. And before you scratch your
head over that, remember that the only reason I don’t weigh 300 pounds is
because I exercise (literally and figuratively) portion control. Everything you
see on my blog, I’ve often only had a bite of: 1 cookie, a sliver of brownie, a
half slice of cake. Unless I confess otherwise. I’m usually honest about my
portion control transgressions and will ‘fess up when I’ve eaten five of
something because it was
just that good.
This falls into the
5-cookies-consumed category. At least I’m pretty sure I ate five when I first
tried out this recipe awhile back. This year, so far I’ve baked off most of it
and given them away but I haven’t tried this batch yet. But I’m pretty sure
they tasted fine since I followed the same recipe and they looked good.
The
only thing I did differently was to roll the cookie logs into red and green
sanding sugars so I could get the Christmas look for my care packages and
goodie bags. I really liked how they ended up looking and it’s just as easy to
roll the cookie dough logs in colored sugars as well as plain sparkle sugar.
If
you want to make for Hanukkah, blue sanding sugar and silver sanding sugar
works just as well as red and green for Christmas celebrants. I love the
versatility of this dough. It’s easy to make, you can make it ahead of time and
keep it in your freezer until you need it (thaw for 10-15 minutes beforehand
just for ease of slicing but don’t let the dough get warm) and they’re delicious
slices of butter goodness. Just try to stop after 5.
1 cup unsalted butter, cut into 2-tablespoon pieces
1 cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pure almond extract (I used vanilla extract)
2 large egg yolks
2 ¼ cups (9.9 ounces) bleached all-purpose flour
½ cup coarse or crystal sugar
1 large egg, beaten
1. In a heavy-duty mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugar, salt and almond extract until light and creamy. Add the yolks, one at a time, and beat with each addition, just to blend in thoroughly.
2. On low speed, beat in the flour, scraping down the bowl twice. Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Roll each into a log about 1 ½ inches in diameter.
3. Sprinkle coarse sugar evenly on wax paper, the length of the rolls and about 4 inches wide. Brush a roll lightly with beaten egg, then roll in sugar to coat well. Repeat with each roll. Wrap each roll individually in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight.
4. About 30 minutes before you are ready to bake, place a shelf in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 375⁰F.
5. Cover a heavy baking sheet with parchment paper sprayed with nonstick cooking spray. Slice cookies into 3/8-inch slices and arrange about 1 inch apart on the sheet.
6. Place the baking sheet on the arranged shelf. Bake one sheet at a time until the edges just begin to brown, about 14 minutes. Allow to cool on the sheet for 2 minutes, and then remove to a cooling rack.
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