Almond thins

Can’t believe it’s taken me this long to get some baking on the blog! Don’t worry, there is plenty more to come.

These crunchy little biscuits are far too easy to eat. Perfect as an accompaniment to all sorts of creamy desserts (think mousse, pannacotta, ice cream, or especially the delicious Crème Légère and strawberries that I’m posting about later in the week!) or even just with your tea or coffee.

I like them flavoured as below, but you could use no spice, or just one, or  indeed make a more strongly spiced gingerbread type version. It depends what you are serving them with. Play around!

This recipe makes a huge amount of biscuits, but once chilled and wrapped the dough can be frozen very successfully. I like to bake a third or half of the dough, and freeze the rest for near instant biscuits another time. It’s very flexible. If using from frozen, just leave it out to defrost until you can slice it. Usually this only takes half an hour or so for me.

Recipe adjusted from Lisa Faulkner’s book ‘Tea & cake with Lisa Faulkner’

Yield: at least 50 biscuits

Ingredients:

• 115g butter, cubed
• 250g demerara sugar
• 80ml water
• 300g plain flour, plus more for dusting
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 100g flaked almonds
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon cardamom
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Place the butter in a medium saucepan over a medium-low heat along with the sugar and water. Stir until the butter has just melted, but don’t boil the mixture, most of the sugar should not be dissolved. Remove from the heat.

Weigh all the remaining ingredients into a small mixing bowl and stir to combine. Tip into the saucepan and mix thoroughly with a spatula or wooden spoon until fully combined and no flour is visible.

Line a loaf tin with clingfilm and press the dough into the tin. Wrap the sides of the clingfilm over the dough to cover it. Chill in the fridge for several hours or until firm.

Preheat your oven to 180°C, and line a couple of baking trays with some greaseproof paper.

Remove the dough from the fridge and take off the clingfilm. The dough may feel a bit sticky on the outside, if so, dust all over with a little flour. Using a very sharp knife, slice the dough crosswise into rectangles approximately 2mm (as thick as a couple of credit cards stacked together) thick. It’ll take some practice to get them even and the right thickness, but don’t worry, even the wonky ones seem to get eaten!

Place the biscuits on the prepared baking trays. You will almost certainly need to do this in batches, as this makes a lot of biscuits. bake for 5-7 minutes, or until they start to look quite firm and dry on the surface (see the second picture from the bottom below). Flip them over (I find a small offset spatula is perfect for sliding under them), and bake for a further 5-7 minutes. You are looking for them to be an even dark golden brown colour.  Watch them carefully, because of the high sugar content they will darken rapidly!

Remove the biscuits to a wire rack to cool while you bake the rest. They will keep well in an airtight tin for some time, but they always seem to vanish after a couple of days at our house…