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Blanch almonds. Leave the first quantity whole; grind the remainder to a fine powder. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Cream together lard and sugar in a mixing bowl. Beat egg and add, along with ground almonds and almond extract. Blend in well. Sift flour together with baking powder and salt. 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.) 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.) 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. |
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