Polvorones
Polvorones are the crumbliest of cookies. Made with toasted flour, ground almonds, sugar and just butter to hold them together they melt, or more accurately crumble, in your mouth in a delicious way.
They are a traditional Spanish holiday cookie and sold in markets in special paper wrappers to prevent them from falling apart before the get to your mouth!
For Spain I almost always go savory because I love tapas, and especially love cheese and olives, and of course the requisite wine to go along with them, but I was feeling like I wanted to venture out into the land of sweets.
Polvorones can be flavored in a few different ways, the most popular seem to be canela (cinnamon), limon (lemon), and almendra (almond), these are made with almond and cinnamon and have a very delicate but distinct flavor. I hope you enjoy these traditional Spanish cookies.
Although this recipe requires a few steps (and a mixer and a food processor) there is nothing complicated about it. The hardest part is trusting that the dough will actually stick together!
Polvorones: Spanish Almond Cookies
Makes about 24 cookies
1 1/2 cups (220g) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (100g) raw almonds
5 ounces (140g) (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter
3/4 cup (160g) sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Powdered sugar, for dusting, optional
1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Pour flour onto a cookie sheet. Toast flour in the oven for about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Set aside to cool.
2. Place raw almonds on another cookie sheet. Toast the almonds until they change color just slightly, or about 8 minutes. Once toasted, place almonds into a food processor. Process until they are finely ground, move ground almonds to a plate or bowl to cool.
3. Reduce oven temperature to 250° F.
4. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla together with a hand or electric whisk.
5. Add the cooled flour and finely ground almonds as well as the cinnamon to the butter mixture and incorporate all the ingredients well. The resulting dough will be very crumbly.
6. Place a sheet of waxed paper or a silpat mat on a cutting board or another flat work surface. Press the dough together with your hands to form a rough ball. Then press the dough onto the waxed paper. Carefully flatten the dough with a floured rolling pin, into a 1/2-inch uniform thickness. Use a round cookie cutter to cut out 24 cookies. You may need to cut out a first batch and then re-combine the remaining dough and roll it out again to get as many cookies as possible, even though it is very crumbly, it will come back together.
7. Since the dough is dry and easily breaks apart, use a small spatula to carefully move the cookies to a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper. Bake cookies for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown on the edges. Allow cookies to cool completely before removing them from the cookie sheet, they are still very delicate and crumbly and will fall apart!
8. Once cooled, sift powdered sugar over the cookies and serve. They will crumble in your mouth (or hand!) so be careful when serving and eating.
Adapted from The Spruce Eats
