Butter Cookies for Mary
I met my friend Mary on the very first day of college. She is one of the smartest, funniest people I know. A savvy foodie, she and I spent some good times cooking and eating our way through New York City in our younger days.
Yesterday, she emailed me and asked for, "that cookie recipe with almond flour and butter." Well, that would cover a couple dozen of my recipes. After a bit of email back and forth, we narrowed it down to one of the recipes I had concocted a few years ago, when I still lived in New York. Here it is, Mary.
2 ½ cups blanched almond flour
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
½ cup salted butter, cut into pieces
¼ cup agave nectar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- In a food processor, place almond flour and salt and pulse briefly
- Add butter, agave and vanilla and pulse until ingredients are well blended
- Separate dough into 2 balls and place each on a piece of parchment paper
- Cover each ball of dough with another piece of parchment paper
and roll out to ⅛ inch thickness
- Place in freezer for 30 minutes
- Using a 2 inch round cookie cutter (or the top of a 2 inch wide jelly jar) cut out cookies*
- Bake at 350° for 5-7 minutes
- Cool and serve
* if dough becomes too soft to work with, roll it out again between the 2 pieces of parchment paper
Posted on February 27, 2007 in desserts by Elana
other entries you may like: Pecan Shortbread Cookies
or Orange Heart Cookies
or Star Cookies for Santa Lucia
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Before you leave a comment...
"Check out Elana's FAQ page for info on substitutions -- there are just too many possibilities so she can't answer all of these : ) But the Forums are an excellent resource and I highly recommend posting your substitution questions there; everyone is friendly and helpful." -Katie
hi elana, I love the simplicity of this recipe. I'd like to make but without the butter. any reccommendations?
thanks!
Ian,
You could try experimenting and reformulating the recipe without butter perhaps using grapeseed oil, that is a very good butter substitute.
Elana
k, great, thanks for the reply. what baout using a different kind of flour aside from almond?
Ian,
This is indeed a frequently asked question from my readers. The answer to this question and many others can be found on my FAQs page.
Elana
HOW CAN I PRINT A RECIPE ONLY? MY PRINTER PRINTS ALL THE PAGES WITH COMMENTS ETC.
JAY,
You can click the text link "print friendly recipe" located below each post to print the recipe.
Elana
Elana, Love your recipes, your website, pictures, etc! SO glad I found it!
Question: I've made your pecan shortbread cookies and they're wonderful. Now I want to try the Butter Cookies for Mary. However, my question is this--rather than roll the dough out, do you think it would work to just put a spoonful on a cookie sheet and press down with a fork or glass?
Thanks!
Mary,
I haven't done that myself, though would think it's not such a big adjustment that it's worth a try.
Let me know how it goes if ya do it.
Thanks,
Elana
Instead of the butter cookie recipe, I decided to make the Pecan Shortbread cookies, because I got some fresh pecans from my neighbors' trees.
I placed small spoons full (about eight) on a cookie sheet, and pressed them down with a fork. They were delicious!
Then I took the rest of the dough and rolled it out thin on a cookie sheet without sides, and cut it into squares with my pizza cutter. They were delicious.
Also thought what a wonderful pie crust it would make for a sugar-free cream pie!
I think the moral of the story is that this recipe is so perfect and tasty that you could do all sorts of things and it will always taste delicious!
Mary
Mary,
Thanks so much :-)
Elana
Elana, I have a few new recipes that call for bulgur wheat. What do you think would be a good gluten free substitution for that?
Stefani -Thanks for stopping by; please see my faq's regarding your question :-)
This is my second fave recipe thus far..the first being the chocolate orange truffles. I tried rolling them out but it didn't go too well. So, I balled them up and smushed them by hand. This was more fun.
Carey -Great improvisation with this recipe. Next time if you want to roll out the dough just chill it a bit longer and dust your rolling surface with almond flour to prevent sticking. Thanks for your comment.
Elana
I love your site and your recipes!
I am gluten intolerant. I have not had the Celiac test yet as my doctor only recommended that I follow a gluten free diet at this point.
I attempted to make these cookies but they came out very bitter, I am not exactly sure what I did wrong.
Do you think it is possible
that I did not add enough Vanilla???
If that is the case would they be bitter?
What kind of butter do you use?
I am excited to try more of your recipes.
Thanks
Kristy
Mine were bitter too! I am a great baker and have never had a bitter result. I have made the CC cookies and they were great. I can only assume that it is my butter. I used maple syrup for sweetener.
Won't make these again
i've made these a dozen times (followed the directions, used the exact ingredients) and they always come out tasting great...
i would try making them again, without substituting ingredients, also making sure your ingredients are fresh (ie. salted butter)
Very good recipe. I substituted an equal amount of honey for agave syrup -- perhaps I should have adjusted the amount up, since I hear agave syrup is sweeter than honey. The first thing I noticed was that it took ~15 minutes to bake instead of 5-7. This may be a result of my oven being untrustworthy, although it seems to be fairly modern. It also was less sweet than I would have liked, but was incredible with a little dollop of raspberry jam or honey on top.
I made this last night, with a number of substitutions.
I halved the recipe, used almonds I'd ground up at home instead of store-bought almond flour, substituted the agave with half brown rice syrup and half apple syrup (reduced fresh apple juice), and substituted the butter with half grapeseed oil and half toasted hazelnut oil.
I baked them at 350 for about 8-9 minutes.
They were a little greasy for me, and a little sweet (I don't eat refined sugars anymore, the sweetest things I get these days are apples). I figure the extra greasiness is due to the oils instead of butter. Next time, I may add in some glutinous rice flour or something to make them slightly tea-biscuit-y-er. I suspect oat flour could also be a very nice accompaniment.
They did smell utterly fantastic when baking up. It's been a long time since I've had cookies I could actually eat. :)
Hi Elana, I was excited to come across your site and have tried your delicious lemon poppy seed muffins. The only thing is, I am on the candida diet which is super strict, so I am only allowed Stevia for a sweetener... I found the conversion information when searching on your site, but even using that measurement, my butter cookies crumbled when I tried to take them out of the pan. They were delicious, I just wish they would stay in cookie form! :) Any suggestions? (I was using the liquid extract, not the powder form of Stevia). I'm trying to figure out the consistency of the agave nectar and level of sweetness compared to Stevia.
By the way, I adore you for your healthy, functional, simple and delicious recipes- keep up the admirable work!
Elana,
I am in desperate need for a GF/CF biscuit for a 6 year old little girl. My daughter was just diagnosed with major food allergies, and she is craving biscuits. I made the biscuits from your book. They were awesome, but she is used to a "white" biscuit. Do you have any recipes for biscuits using coconut flour that looks a little more like a traditional biscuit?
Thank you so much,
Amber
There is a recipe for a coconut flour biscuit in Bruce Fife's book "Cooking with Coconut Flour." Can make it plain, or with bacon, or cheese. It's a pretty good substitute for a wheat biscuit, and it is white.
This recipe is wonderful and I added 5 Medjool pitted dates to the mix and it was enjoyed by all. Also I formed the dough into 2 long rolls in wax paper and placed in freezer for about 40 to 60 minutes. Slice and bake in 1/4" slices, of course, using parchment paper for easy removal and cleanup. This was much easier and no excess mess. My cookies were about 2" in diameter. YUM!
I made these wonderful cookies.. but just dropped them on a cookie sheet and pressed my thumb in the middle and used all fruit blackberry jam in the "thumb print" YUM YUM YUM
I made these today. The only thing I did differently was I formed them into a log and sliced them (as another commenter suggested.) They turned out really yummy. I would definitely make these again. Thanks Elana!