Serves: 35
Total Calories: 50

35 almonds
10 almonds
1 cup lard
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt

1. Blanch almonds. Leave the first quantity whole grind the remainder to a fine powder. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cream together lard and sugar in a mixing bowl. Beat egg and add, along with ground almonds and almond extract. Blend in well.

3. Sift flour together with baking powder and saIt. Gradually add to bowl, mixing with the hands to blend. Then knead into a dough. (If the dough is too stiff, add water a drop at a time to make it more pliable, but do not soften too much.)

4. With a rolling pin, roll the dough out to a thickness of 1/2-inch. Then, with a cookie cutter, cut in 1 1/2-inch circles. (Or pinch off the dough and form into small balls which, when flattened, will make cookies of the same size.)

5. Grease a baking sheet with peanut oil arrange cookies on top. With chopsticks or finger, make an indentation in the center of each cookie then press in a whole almond. Bake until pale golden (about 15 minutes).

NOTE: Almond cookies may be baked in advance, wrapped in foil and frozen.

VARIATIONS:
* For the lard, substitute either butter or 1/2 cup peanut oil. (One teaspoon sesame oil may be added to the latter.)
* For the flour, substitute rice flour for the white sugar, light brown sugar. For the almond extract, use half-almond, half-vanilla extract.
* In step 5, before topping with almonds, glaze the cookies by brushing them with a mixture of 1 egg yolk and 1 tablespoon water, beaten together.
* In step 5, omit the almonds. Instead, dip the end of a chopstick into red food coloring and lightly touch the indented center of each cookie to decorate.

The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook. ©1994 by Gloria Bley Miller.

Nutritional Facts:

Serves: 35
Total Calories: 50
Calories from Fat: 1

More Recipes from the Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook Cookbook:
*Sweet Dishes
Almond Cookies
Almond Float I
Almond Float II
Banana Gelatin
Eight Precious Pudding
Eight Precious Pudding: Fruit and Nut Combinations
Eight Precious Pudding: Sweetened Water
Ginger Soup
Ginger Soup: Dumplings
Glazed Chestnut Balls
Glazed Whole Chestnuts
Green Pea Pudding
Honeyed Apples
Honeyed Apples: Syrup Mixture A
Honeyed Apples: Syrup Mixture B
Honeyed Apples: Syrup Mixture C
Honeyed Bananas
Honeyed Crab Apples
Hot Lotus Tea
Peking Dust I
Peking Dust II
Peking Dust: Glazed Fruit
Pineapple Gelatin
Sesame Seed Cookies
Spiced Roasted Peanuts
Steamed Pears
Steamed Red Date Cake
Steamed Sponge Cake
Sugared Chestnut Balls
Sugared Walnuts
Sweet Almond Tea I
Sweet Almond Tea II
Sweet Almond Tea III
Sweet Grapefruit Tea
Sweet Orange Tea I
Sweet Orange Tea II
Sweet Peanut Soup
Sweet Pineapple Tea
Sweet Walnut Tea
Sweetened Water
Turkish Barley Pudding
Water Chestnut Pudding