Good to Know: A mix of sugar and honey in these citrusy cookies satisfies a sweet tooth, yet each thin, delicate cookie has only forty-four calories. Go ahead, have two.
Although they're called "horns," these cookies are shaped more like a horseshoe. They can be piped into any shape, however, such as the familiar rosette with a little piece of maraschino cherry in the center. The almond paste and egg white combination gives them a wonderful chewy texture.
This is an amped up version of Mexican Wedding Cake Cookies by Sally’s mother, Ricki.
What This Recipe Shows: By rolling the dough balls in plain sugar first, the confectioners sugar does not soak in so much and stays on the surface better.
Ingredients
Egg whites are the key element in this recipe.
As plain as these cookies look, that's how surprising they are. At first glance, they have the look of little meringue buttons: their tops are pale, smooth, buff colored, and as crackly thin as parchment. Tucked beneath the crust is the cookie proper, a tidbit that is all crunch. These are cookies you might be tempted to gobble like gumdrops if it weren't for their flavor: anise, a flavor so assertive it can never be taken lightly.
Dandelion flowers aren't just pretty. They are also extremely nutritious food and have none of the bitterness of dandelion leaves if you cut off the green bracts at the base of the flower cluster.
Light, bumpy, nutty and completely higgledy-piggledy-shaped, these cratered meringue nuggets are just the cookies to reach for with your last coffee of the afternoon or your last spoonful of ice cream at night. They are featherweight but packed with flavor, and I love the way they disappear in your mouth — quickly, so quickly and fizzily that if they didn't have nuts, you'd think you were eating espresso Pop Rocks.