When a recipe requires four sticks of butter and five cups of almonds, can there possibly be a downside? No. Charlotte Midthun of Granite Falls encountered this recipe in First for Women magazine and had a hunch it would be a hit. “I took these to a party, and everyone loved them,” she said. “I’ve been making them ever since. They’re such a nice contrast to all the chocolate cookies and sugar cookies at Christmas.” They sure are.
The first stop on my coffee cart treat quest (second stop, Raspberry Mazurkas, page 108) is the elusive Pink Cookie. Uncle Seth’s Pink Cookies are palm- size cookies scented with cardamom and topped with a pink- tinted cream cheese and almond frosting. Here, I’ve made them into a pat- in- the pan cookie bar with a layer of perfectly pink cream cheese frosting scented with a bit of almond extract.
Almond butter is pretty mild in flavor, but crisp almonds, chocolate, and punchy freeze- dried strawberries make these a special little snack. Feel free to substitute peanut butter or any other nut butter for the almond butter. If your almond butter is unsalted, add an additional pinch of salt to the dough. Toast the almonds in the oven while the bars are baking to save yourself some prep time.
I love this incredibly moist pistachio cake made with a few ingredients—just pistachios, eggs, and sugar, plus some almond extract and a pinch of salt. Dorie Greenspan has a Simple Almond Cake in her cookbook, Baking Chez Moi, that my aunt has been making for years, and every time I eat it with her, I say I am going to re-create it with pistachios. I am so glad I finally did, because it’s even better than I imagined! I made my own pistachio flour by toasting the raw nuts and throwing them into a food processor. Surprisingly, almond extract really brings out the flavor of the pistachios here.
Almond flour has been a pantry staple in Paris for as long as anyone can remember. It happens to be less expensive than it is here and, perhaps because of the turnover, usually quite fresh. In the States, it’s still seen primarily as an alternative to flour for people with gluten sensitivity or for the health conscious, who like it for its protein content. Almond flour provides texture and taste, and it keeps a cake moist, as almonds are naturally high in fat. It’s for this reason that I use less oil than in an all-flour yogurt cake. The downside is that almond flour cakes don’t rise quite as high. Made with equal portions of flour and almond flour, however, lets you capture the best of both worlds. This cake is light, tender and moist and lasts for days. Like the classic yogurt cake, it plays well with spices, extracts, liqueur, syrups and floral waters. Here I’ve added sliced almonds to the top, for crunch.
This cross between a fruit ice and a sorbet sidesteps the usual sorbet formula of sugar syrup and smoothing out in an ice cream machine.
Chunks of caramelized almonds look like burnished cobblestones paving the sweet cookie crust of this tart from the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. There is a delightful play of textures here, a crisp but buttery crust, the crunch of toasted almonds, and the pleasing chewiness of their caramel coating. Soft scents of lemon and anise set this apart from many of the almond tarts made throughout Emilia-Romagna. Although deeply flavored, the tart is not overly rich, making it a good finale to meals of robust tastes and hearty dishes.
Imagine dark, outrageously rich chocolate mousse crossed with your favorite chocolate fudge and you'll know what makes this easy-to-do cake so enticing. Dolloped with whipped cream, it is a fine Mother's Day dessert.
Two kinds of chocolate, dark cocoa, intense vanilla and coffee, and a crunch of almond turn a fine chocolate cake into an opulent one.