Chocolate almond cookies...

I've tried writing this topic for umptenth times today and keep on getting error. Finally! I'm in. Had to clear all the temp files and cookies, then only it works. Seeing that I was getting nowhere, I went back to Aina's baju raya..am getting closer to finishing the chiffon lined jubah. Just as I was gaining more motivation to finish up the baju, Alif called - twice before he finally called with crying voice "Umi, naiklah sekarang!" compared to "Umi, bila nak naik, dah lama Alif tunggu", few minutes before. Well...I since I am in my room, I might as well come back to this post - not until I had given Alif his ritual full body massage before sleep!
OK, I've been looking for guaranteed sedap biskut nestum recipe with no success so, I am now resigned to use the best look good recipe that I can find - thought Lemon Cheese Nestum looked good. But somehow I got sidetracked and tried this chocolate almond pulak. This one need to be refrigerated first so, I thought, I would just prepared the dough first on Friday night and then cut and bake on Sat morning. But having bad headache on Friday night doesn't really help. A small nap became dead sleep - only woke up at 4:30am the next morning and the butter was left on the kitchen counter overnight - so, I had to work on the cookie dough right away! Well, after I had completed the sahur course laa..

It was not complicated to make. Real easy actually.

Just mix the following:
250gm butter with 185g icing sugar -- beat till mix just nice, then add
1 egg, 1/2 tsp coffee paste (1 used mocha paste instead, couldn't find coffee paste), 1tsp chocholate paste (again, had to improvise -use choc emulco instead). Cream them - just a little bit - no need to make it light. Then
sieve together 400gm cookie flour (plain flour also can), 1/2 tsp baking powder, 15 gm chocolate powder and add them into the mixture. Add and mix manually. Finally add in the 180gm almond flake (I only have 100gm - pun dah cukup actually).

Once all mixed up nicely, press it into square tin lined with grease paper or cookie paper so that you can take it out easily. Then refrigerate overnight or until firm. I didn't really wait overnight. The dough was done around 6am and I started cutting them out in the afternoon. Once firm, take out and cut them into long rectangle - about 1.5"x8" and then cut thinly to get small square or rectangle shape. Place the cut cookie onto greased baking sheet and bake for about 15-20 mins at 170C. I used shortening to grease coz the tips given said that if use butter to grease, the cookie might become more brown than it should at the bottom. And if use dark baking sheet, it should be done at about 15mins (that's what I use) but if aluminum it'll take a bit longer, probably 20 -25 mins. Let it cool on wire rack so that it'll stay crispy longer coz all side of the cookie steamed off equally (that's another tip).

The cookie is very crunchy - most refrigerated cookies are. Alif loves it so much - he took one bowl of it and ate in front of TV and really finished them all!

Here's the final look - in the cookie jar - recipe from Alex Goh's Joy of Baking Cookies Book