Almond, Pistachio and Cardamom Cookies

These soft, scrumptious cookies have a satisfying nutty taste and a rich cardamom flavour, with a subtle hint of rose. The ingredients are mostly Middle Eastern and these cookies, in fact almond cookies are often included in kosher gift baskets.

Since the recipe doesn’t contain any wheat, it’s perfect for people with gluten and wheat allergies. Enjoy!

Tips & Notes

• You can find rose water in Asian shops. The rose flavour is very subtle, though, so if you can’t find rose water just skip it and give this recipe a try anyway – the cookies will be delicious either way!
• The dough needs to rest for three hours to develop the flavour. I stated the amount of egg whites needed in weight (70 gr) because if you put too much egg white, the dough will be too wet; 2 medium eggs will give you about 70 gr of egg whites.
• If you over-bake the cookies, they’ll be hard outside and too chewy, so keep an eye on them while they’re baking.  When you get them out of the oven, the cookies should be pale, slightly cracked and quite soft; they’ll harden when cooled.
• When you grind  nuts in a food processor, it’s important to pulse. If you run the food processor continuously, the nuts will start to produce oil and you’ll end up with nut butter instead of ground nuts.  Sugar added in the food processor helps the nuts stay dry.
• These cookies taste even better the day after they’ve been baked –  if you can resist them. They should keep even longer than a week, but I honestly can’t tell you for sure because in my house they never last for more  than a week

Almond, pistachio & cardamom cookies

• Remove the skin from the almonds: put almonds in a small pan, pour boiling water over them and set aside for 3 minutes. Drain the water, then take each almond between your thumb and forefinger and squeeze gently – the skin will easily slip off the almonds. Spread the peeled almonds on a shallow baking tray, in a single layer, and let them dry in the oven at 80° (175° F) for 10 minutes.
• Put dry almonds and pistachio nuts in a food processor with vanilla sugar, salt and ground cardamom, and pulse until reduced to a fine powder.
• In a bowl, lightly whisk the egg whites with a fork for about 1 minute, until they start to form little bubbles. Add the rose water and honey, whisk until combined.
• Add the dry ingredients and mix until combined into a soft, sticky dough. Cover the bowl with cling film and let the dough rest for 3 hours in a cool, dry place.
• Preheat the oven to 150° C (300° F). Dust your work surface with abundant icing sugar, and fill a small bowl with icing sugar (about 5-6 tablespoons).
• Divide the dough into 4 parts. Place one quarter of the dough over the working surface dusted with icing sugar and roll it into a cylinder about 3 cm in diameter (1.2 inches). Cut small pieces of dough from the cylinder, about 3 cm long. Flatten each piece slightly, then put it in the bowl filled with icing sugar and coat it completely.
• Place each piece of dough onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper, then bake for about 20-22 minutes. The sweets need to remain soft, otherwise they’ll be too hard on the outside.
• Take out of the oven, let rest for about 5 minutes on the tray, then place on a rack to cool completely.
• Store in a tin box or airtight container, with a piece of parchment paper or wax paper between each layer, for  a week.