These have just three ingredients — sugar, sliced almonds and an egg — and no reason, other than a baker’s faith, to turn into anything delicious. When a Parisian friend, Martine Collet, gave me the recipe, I kept asking if she’d forgotten anything. Maybe a little flour? Maybe a dab of butter? Nope. 1–2–3, and that’s it. What you get are crisp, flavorful caramel-almond wafers.
ON-DEMAND: Listen to Faith and Dorie talk about this cookie recipe as well as several other cookie recipes from Dorie’s book on The Faith Middleton Food Schmooze.
Excerpted from Dorie’s Cookies, published by Rux Martin/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Copyright © 2016 Dorie Greenspan. Photographs © 2016 Davide Luciano and Claudia Ficca.
- 6 tablespoons (75 grams) sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1-1/4 cups (125 grams) sliced almonds blanched or unblanched
- Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat it to 325 degrees F. Depending on how you want to make these, generously spray two regular muffin tins (make sure you’re using baker’s spray) or line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Have a small cookie scoop or a teaspoon at hand.
- Whisk the sugar and egg together in a bowl for a minute or so, until well blended and just a bit thick. Add the almonds and whisk until evenly coated with the mixture. You need to use the batter right away — it separates as it stands. In fact, it’s good to give the batter a stir or two as you’re spooning it out.
- Each cookie needs 2 teaspoons of batter. For muffin tins, use your fingers to spread the batter evenly over the base. For free-form cookies, scoop the batter onto the baking sheets, leaving at least 2 inches of space between the mounds of batter, and flatten each mound with the back of a fork.
- Bake the muffin-tin cookies for about 17 minutes and the baking-sheet cookies for about 20 minutes, rotating the pans midway through baking. The cookies should be toasted-almond beige, and dry and crackled on top. Transfer the baking sheets or tins to racks and let the cookies cool for about 10 minutes.
- To remove the cookies from the muffin tins, work a blunt knife around each cookie, then slip the knife under, tilt it and pop the cookie free. Or carefully lift the free-form cookies with a wide spatula.
If your kitchen is cool and dry, you can keep these in a tin or paper bag overnight. Keep them longer, and they might soften, a condition easily reversed: Place the cookies on a lined baking sheet and warm them in a 350-degree-F oven for about 6 minutes; cool on the sheet.
Delicious and easy! I expected no less from Faith and Dorie. However, I was wondering if I should’ve added salt, since you’d talked about it in the show. Then it would have been a 4-ingredient recipe, still not bad.
Also, I used foil on the bottom onto which I’d rolled a hand-held stick of butter. Came out great that way, not a single cookie broke! I was able to peel off the foil as I lifted the cookies. This is a definite keeper- – THANK YOU! Happy Holidays!!!
I tried this recipe many times it’s great taste and very easy to make. Use two parchments to avoid sticky when taking out from the baking sheet.thank u for the great recipe.
So glad to hear it. Thanks for your note!
The recipe is easy to follow and very simple, but I did not care for the flavor. Unfortunately it was too eggy, despite the fact that I added vanilla. I would not make this again.
Is there anything that could replace the almonds other than other nuts, Perehaps almond flour, fruit, chocolate
chips? Thank you Love the program
Since there are only three ingredients, I’m less inclined to replace the almonds with something other than a comparable nut. I tend to think swap-ins should be really similar in recipes like this. The chocolate chips will melt, for example, and might end up a mess. I see one listener added coconut, though. I endorse add-ins! Swaps just may not be so easy if you’re going for a nutty-textured cookie.
Pecans
Brown sugar
Heard about this recipe on NPR (Splendid Table). They said coconut flakes were a good sub. for the almonds. I’d assume they meant the unsweetened flaked coconut, which you may have to go to a health food store to find.
Thanks for this!
This is an amazing cookie ! That said, I went ahead and added an equal amount of coconut as almonds, and everyone really loves them. Try drizzling some melted dark chocolate over them too…..just great !
We all love this recipe as it is so simple and easily changed up a bit to make them even more versatile.
Thank you for sharing this lovely recipe with all of us who hate having to measure out 30 different ingredients,refrigerating for two hours, and rolling out miles of dough.
So simple and easy to make not only that delicious. Thank you sharing your recipe.
These are quick, easy and fantastic tasting cookies. My go to for quick easy go to for Christmas cookies. After cookies have cool out of oven I dip in chocolate and sprinkle with crush candy canes.
I make almost identical cookies with confectioners sugar, and egg whites, but I add orange and lime zest. I sprinkle Maldon salt on before baking, which takes them to another level entirely.
Sounds wonderful!
can you bake these in advance & freeze them?
Hi Janie. Dorie doesn’t specifically say, so you’ll have to experiment with a couple of cookies and report back.
Just made these and they were really easy and good! How about using coconut sugar instead? And what about adding cocoa powder?
I just learned from listener Susan that unsweetened coconut flakes could sub in for the almonds, if that sounds good to you. And, I don’t see why you couldn’t add cocoa powder, if that’s your thing. Maybe even a chocolate drizzle over the cookies? I might try that!