When I was at the Parent's house for Thanksgiving I was putting leftovers in their garage freezer when I saw that they had my favorite (gluten filled) pastries in there. These pastries are like a cross between a cookie and a pie. The pastry dough is almost like a pie dough, but with sugar added so it's sweeter; it's buttery and soft! And they are filled with almond paste, which is like a little bite of delicious in your mouth! They are amazing!
The cookies come from a bakery in a small Midwest Dutch town about an hour from where the Parents live. You can't just go down the street and buy them, so they were a real treat when we got them. The Dutch call these "gevulde koeken", which means "filled cookies".
I just had to try to recreate these! I found a few (gluten) recipes online and they were all very similar. They also all used weight measurements (grams or ounces) for the ingredients; I don't have a food scale (just a bathroom one!) so I had to convert those too. I used this site for the conversions. I also found that I had to add more milk to make the dough come together - the other recipes call for a few drops to 1 tsp. The cookies turned out to be so yummy! I had to limit myself to trying just 1/2 of one. I think I'll probably put the rest in the freezer so they don't disappear too fast...out of site, you know!
Almond Pie Cookies
14 Tbls butter, cubed
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup white rice flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup potato starch
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup sweet rice flour
2 tsp xanthan gum
2 Tbls milk
7 oz almond paste
1 egg
1 egg + a splash of milk beaten together for the egg wash
Whisk together flours and xanthan gum. Add butter, sugar and flour mixture to the mixer bowl and stir until incorporated. Add milk slowly until dough just sticks together. Cover dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
When the dough is ready, pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
Mix the almond paste with the egg.
Roll out the dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper, until it is about 1/8 - 1/4 inch thick. Cut out into a circle (I used a wide mouth glass for this, but a biscuit cutter or round cookie cutter would work; traditionally a round, flutter cutter is used). Place 1/2 the rounds on a cookie sheet and put a mound of almond paste on each.
Moisten the edges with water and place another round on top - seal the edges by pressing down gently with your fingers. I also used a fork to make a pretty edge since I didn't have a fluted one. Place an almond (I used slivered almonds because that's what I had in my freezer) on top and brush with the egg wash.
Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, until browned. I also brushed the egg wash on again at the 15 minute mark, as recommended, to help get a nice golden color.
