Almond Shortbread Biscuits

GM: Would you guys want to bake cookies today?
N & J: Yay!
J: GM, have you got everything ready?
GM: Not yet.
N: Do you have cookie cutters?
GM: Oh yes, I certainly do. Wait till we get home, then I will get everything ready.

N: GM, what's that yellow and white thing in the bowl?
GM: Oh, that's butter and icing sugar.(pointing)
N: J, come! GM is starting to make cookies!
J: What's that white thing? What are you doing? Why?
GM: It's flour and I am sifting it to remove any lumps.

Well, I could go on with the long conversation I had with my grandsons while preparing the dough for them to make cookies.

Kids are always full of curiosity and ask a lot of questions. When I was a kid, I hardly had the chance to ask.
"Children should be seen and not heard" was the age-old adage. But not anymore with this new generation of kids - they do not hesitate to question. Sometimes the questions they pose can be quite embarrassing. BUT we cannot ignore such questions. It's better that we, as adults or parents, should try to give them an appropriate answer to satisfy their curiosity rather than they obtain their answers from 'unreliable' or 'unsavoury' sources.

Now to get back to the cookies!

I used half of this recipe from "The Hawthorne Series of Biscuits, Cookies & Shortbread".

Ingredients:

125g butter
1/3 cup caster sugar (I used icing sugar)
1 teaspoon almond essence (I used vanilla)
1 egg yolk
3/4 cup plain flour, sifted
1/4 cup rice flour, sifted (I didn't have any, so I sub with same amount of plain flour)
1/2 cup self-raising flour
60g blanched almonds (I omitted these)


Method:

1. Cream butter and sugar till creamy and fluffy.

2. Add in the essence and egg yolk and cream to combine.

3. Add flour to form a soft dough.

4. Roll dough into a log shape, cover with cling wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

5. Slice the dough into 3mm rounds. Place on tray and press an almond on top.

6. Bake at 180 degrees C for 15 minutes. (I baked at 150 deg C for 20 minutes.)

I did not follow step 4 and 5. I showed my grandsons how to flatten the dough and cut out with cookie cutters. Then they placed the cookies on the tray and press MM candy on top.
I should have bought the baking MM which will not crack or discolour the cookie.






This is what the almond shortbread biscuits should look like from step 4 & 5.(Taken from the recipe book)