I’ve already told you of my love of Matthew Evans. This is another one of his recipes from Good Weekend. They are sensational. A luscious light texture and the spices add complexity. Next time I might even add a little lemon zest.
(Sorry, no pics, camera batteries are dead and I think the camera is still in the car and it’s freezing so there’s no way I’m going out there now. Just so you know.)
Almond Biscuits
Matthew Evans, Good Weekend
- 125g butter, softened
- 2/3 cup caster sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 1/3 cups plain flour
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 125g whole, unblanched almonds
- 35-40 (about 50g) whole unblanched almonds, for garnish
- Preheat the oven to 180C
- In a food processor blitz the almonds until they’re fine but still crumbly – you don’t want it as fine as commercial almond meal – and set aside
- Cream the butter and sugar together until pale*
- Add the egg
- Fold in the flour, spices, baking powder and salt
- Add the almonds
- Line two trays with baking paper and dot with about 1 tablespoon of mixture at regular intervals, leaving space for them to spread a little**
- Press an almond into the top of each one
- Bake for 8-10 minutes or until they start to tan up nicely (in my oven this took more like 12 minutes)
- Remove from the oven, cool well before storing.
* Because I’ve got a fancy pants processor with different sized bowls, I did the almonds in the small bowl then continued making the recipe using the processor in the bigger bowl
** Mine didn’t spread very much at all, but that could well be because I’d run out of baking powder and Mum’s was out of date…