Almond Walnut Cookies

These cookies were continuation of my attempt to branch out from traditional dessert flavours.  Yes, I know that they're cookies and dipped in chocolate, but they have walnuts!  Which, while still fairly dessert-y, was a new thing for me.  I also haven't baked cookies in AGES, sometime that's totally strange for me, considering my childhood specialty was cookies of the peanut butter chocolate chip variety. 

The original recipe said these were to make four dozen cookies, two teaspoons of dough each, but I ended up with about twenty good sized cookies.  It original recipe also called to bake them on parchment paper, which I didn't have, so I reduced the heat and upped the cooking time to stop the bottoms from burning.  If you ever have any problems with burnt-bottom cookies, though, the best solution is to let them cool, then run the bottoms over a cheese grater a few times.  This will grate off the black, bad tasting burnt part and leave you with just delicious, delicious cookie.

Preheat oven to 325. 


In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Using an electric mixer, beat together the butter, brown sugar and vanilla until pale and fluffy.  This took me a LONG time and was very stressful. Light and fluffy? What did that mean? Oh god, what if I beat it too long? In the end it ended up taking me about ten minutes, and I beat it until it achieved a consistency like thick whipping cream.  Don't forget to scrape down the sides so you don't waste any dough.

Add the flour mixture at low speed, then stir in the walnuts.  After this, I realized the beater wasn't doing the dough any favours in terms of getting it to stick together, so once everything was mixed I used my hands to form it into a big ball.

Grease a baking sheet and form the dough into egg-shapes.  You could definitely fit more onto a pan than I have here, they don't spread at all. Bake for about 7 minutes then check them, then bake in 3-4 minute intervals until set.  It's a really dry dough so they don't need much, just enough so the top is set and the bottom is lightly browned. If in doubt, take them out, I would say. They'll firm up as they cool.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler until smooth.  Remove from heat and dip half of each cookie, one cooled,  into the chocolate.  Place on a tinfoil or parchment paper lined baking sheet.  Sprinkle walnuts over the chocolate covered half of the cookie.  Place cookies in the fridge to allow chocolate to set, around 15 minutes.

Almond Walnut Cookies

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup finely chopped walnuts (4 ounces)

For Decoration:

• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, melted
• 1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts (2 ounces)

Adapted from:  Erza Pound Cake