A couple of times I tried to make cookies in the past, but with no luck.  So I thought of trying this cookie out today.  The cookies came out pretty good.  But I still haven’t mastered the art of rolling the dough on a floured board.  I had to put so much flour to make sure it does not stick to the board.  But at the end, I was very happy to see these cookies nicely baked.

Ingredients

• 5 oz ground almond/almond meal
• 6 oz all-purpose flour
• 5 oz butter at room temperature
• 3 oz castor sugar (increase the amount if you like the cookie to be sweet, I don’t like too much sugar)
• Grated rind of 1 lemon
• ½ teaspoon lemon extract
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg white
• Crushed/flaked almond
• About 1 cup raspberry jam
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Method

• Cream butter and sugar until soft and fluffy
• Stir in the lemon grind, lemon extract, and vanilla
• Add ground almond and flour and mix well
• Make the dough into a ball and wrap in a plastic wrap and chill for about 1 hour.
• Preheat oven to 325F
• Line 2 cookie sheet with parchment paper and butter them a little bit
• Divide the cookie dough into 4 equal parts working with one section at a time
• Roll out the dough to a thickness of about 3 mm on a floured board and
• With a cookie cutter stamp out circles
• Using a small cutter or a piping nozzle stamp small inner circles

• Whisk egg white until lightly frosty
• Brush cookies with egg whites and sprinkle with crushed almonds
• Bake until lightly browned – about 15 minutes
• To make the jam filling: in a saucepan heat jam and lemon juice until it comes to a simmer
• Spread jam over the cookies and sandwich them together

Note: if you don’t have ground almond, you can use blanched almonds.  Grind them into a coarse powder.  Also when I make cookies or cake, I prefer salted butter.  In this way I don’t need to add extra salt to cookies or cakes.