White Chocolate, Almond and Vanilla Cookies...

Last year I received a gift from my very close friend seeing how passionately involved I was getting into my Job...as a Pastry Chef... It is a 3 Book Series...Cakes, Cookies and Cupcakes and each book has 500 Recipes..:-)...Love ya Wendy for the lovely gift...

I was initially excited to get the books because that means I had means to upteem number of recipes and I could try one each day..[or I planned too...what a Joke..:-D]...First few weeks every weekend I gave a try to one or two recipes at work...(I work on weekends :-( )...but as time passed...I just left the books aside in my Book Shelf because I got more busy at work for the regular stuff and had no time to work on new recipes...let alone my experiments...:-D

But this year I was asked by my Boss to work on some new Cookie or Biscuit recipes to update our Menu...I immediately opened up the Book of 500 Cookie recipes and browsed until I ended up with this recipe...When I tried them in a small batch at home...they worked very well and i took a Taste Sample to my Boss and she was equally happy and immediately included this on our menu....Believe me it is one of the easiest recipes I have ever worked on and we produce about 250 at a time at work...and the whole making the dough and weighing and baking takes a total of just 1 hr....for 250 biscuits thats a lot less time....when comapred to the 4 hours i spend on some other Biscuit varieties.

So now lets get into some serious Biscuit Baking Business...and I will leak this guarded recipe for all of you to enjoy...

Here Goes...

Ingredients:

• 125gms Unsalted Butter (softened to room temperature)
• 1 Cup Caster Sugar (Fine Grain White Sugar)
• 1 Egg (55-60 gms)
• 1tsp Vanilla Extract (or use Vanilla bean from the Vanilla Pods)
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 125gms White Chocolate Buttons
• 60gms Slivered Almonds(or Whole Almonds sliced up into thin slithers)
• 1+ 3/4 Cups of Self Raising Flour

Process:

1) Firstly Preheat oven to 180*C. Line a Baking tray with Baking Paper.

2) Then take the softened Butter and Sugar in a bowl and using a electric beater, beat(cream in professional terms) the mixture on a medium speed till pale and fluffy.

3) Then add the egg and vanilla and beat again till well mixed through. Donot over beat at this stage.

4) Sieve the SR Flour and Salt together into the above mixture and fold through using a spatula or spoon.

5) Then finally add the White Chocolate and Almonds and mix thru till well incorporated.

6) Make equal sized balls ( makes 20 to 25 depending on size) and place on the lined Baking Sheet atleast 5 cms Apart from each other because these spread a lot.

7) Bake initially for 10 minutes and then using the tip of your fingers flatten them slightly( very less pressure)

8) Continue baking for another 10 minutes till they get a light golden colour (to check if they are done the simple tip is you should be able to lift them easily without breaking them.)

9) Cool them and Serve.
10) When completely cold, these can be stored in an airtight container for atleast a week.

A simple but delicious Cookie recipe...and these can be made in advance for parties and can be taken as small token gifts to families you are visiting especially if they kids...and I promise they will love them...

Please Note: The Oven Types and Temperatures vary for each and everyone of us... So please bake them accordingly... If using a Fan-forced oven the temperature should reduced by 20*C (i.e 160*C). But the tip to check if your biscuits or cookies are done is given above so varying oven temperatures should not be a Problem...:-)

Image Source: My Phone Camera.

Recipe Source: 500 Cookies by Phillippa Vanstone

Hope you like this Recipe....Give it a Try and do let me Know..

Until Then...Happy Cooking :-)