Lacey Almond Chocolate Cookies

This week’s bake is classy, crispy and downright addicting. Finally decided to tackle a family favorite! Week 45: Lacey Almond Chocolate Cookies

Nuts and chocolate belong together – it’s a proven fact. It’s amazing how many ways humans have found to combine them! These lacy cookies are one of the things that I’d never considered making myself – the store-bought ones were so good, and them seem so delicate (translation: they looked hard to make. Let’s be honest.) I’m so glad I finally decided that I’m worthy of this challenge! After successfully making the Swedish Princess Cake, I’m becoming fearless.

These seem like a cross between a sweet tuile (French wafer cookie) and thin toffee brittle. It calls for corn syrup, which stood out as an odd ingredient for a cookie. Looking more into it however, the use of corn syrup helps to keep these cookies from crumbling into a pile of almond shards. It apparently prevents sugar from recrystallizing after it’s been melted. Magic!

Ooo, aahh, look at that mis en place. Sometimes I forget how nice it is to have everything already measured out and ready to go before a bake. This picture is proof of how deceivingly simple this recipe is – so few ingredients! They seem so intricate when you eat them, but they’re actually just a handful of ingredients that play well together.

Also, as you can see in this picture, I got a white marble pastry board. I’m in love with it. It’s so nice to have a clean, smooth surface to start off a bake with. Plus, it’s beautiful and so much easier to clean than wood! Can’t wait to use it for actual pastries.

I started with slivered almonds and made sure to leave a few larger chunks of almond in the mix. Gotta get that texture right!

Bringing the mixture to a boil is essential, so the sugar will melt and make a happy, bubbly coating for the almonds. It’s a super quick boil though – no caramelizing involved.

After coating the almonds, I popped them in the fridge for a half hour. It helps keep the cookies from spreading too much when they bake.

They spread to four times their size – eek! The picture on the left is an example of why you need to do a smaller tester batch first and watch the cookies carefully as they bake. The color difference is incredible, with seconds in the oven making the difference between chewy and crisp, and crisp and burnt.