|
Toasted Oat Polvorones with Lemon and Cinnamon Polvorones are a traditional Spanish cookie served during Christmastime. These are shortbread-type cookies – soft, crumbly, and melt in your mouth. Polvo literally means dust in Spanish so you can imagine their texture – cookies that turn to dust. They are always served with a generous dusting of powdered sugar. The classic cookies are made with lard, the flour is toasted, there is always cinnamon in them, and sometimes even toasted sesame seeds. In this recipe, I am using oat and almond flour. You will notice that I only toast the oat flour and not the almond and that is simply because I prefer the flavor of raw almond flour, especially with the addition of the lemon zest, but you could also toast the almond flour. They are incredibly easy to make, but do read these notes before making them. - It is important to weigh the ingredients because if you use too much flour your cookies might turn out dry and if you don’t use enough, they will be wet and spread. So get your scale out! - If you cannot have oat flour, you could use light buckwheat flour, which will have an earthier flavor or even sorghum flour. - If you cannot do almond flour, try tiger nut flour, which is also very typical in Spain and not a nut despite its name. You can toast the almond flour as well, if you’d like, but toast the flours on separate baking sheets because almond flour will toast faster than oat. - You can mix the dough in a food processor by pulsing the butter into the flour a few times, but I like to do it by hand to not overmix and turn the dough oily. - You can also shape the cookies by hand instead of rolling. Take approximately 2 to 3 tablespoons of dough and shape into a disk that is 2-inch wide and 3/4-inches tall. Some polvorones are oval shaped. - These cookies will last forever (although I list a week to be safe) and they are even better the next day when they have sat rolled in the powdered sugar. Store them in an airtight container so they don’t dry out. Makes 18 cookies 1 1/4 cup (125 g) finely milled gluten-free oat flour 1 cup (100 g) finely milled almond flour 3/4 cup (90 g) powdered sugar, sifted, plus more for dusting 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1/2 cup (115 g) unsalted butter or vegan butter, at room temperature and cut into 1/2-inch pieces · Toast the oat flour. Preheat the oven to 325F. Place oven rack in the middle. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and evenly spread the oat flour over it. Toast the flour in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes until it smells nutty and begins to look a bit toasty, but without turning brown. Stir the flour halfway through baking time so it toasts evenly. Transfer the flour into a large bowl and let it cool completely. · Make the dough. Once the oat flour is cool, stir in the almond flour, powdered sugar, lemon zest, cinnamon, and salt. Add the pieces of butter and using your hands, begin mixing the butter into the flour. You can use a wooden spoon to do this, but I like to use my fingers so I can feel the dough. It will be a bit messy initially as your hands will be sticky and full of butter. Mix the dough until the butter is fully incorporated. It will feel like cookie dough, moist, a little sticky but not too much. You should be able to form it into a ball. If the dough feels very wet, add a touch more almond flour. · Increase oven temperature to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. · Roll and cut the dough. Line your work surface with a sheet of parchment paper. Place the ball of dough on it and top with another sheet of parchment. Lightly press down the dough so you have a disk that is 3/4-inch tall. I like to use a rolling pin for this to give me an even surface, but since you really aren’t rolling the dough very thinly, it can be done by pressing down with your hand. Dip a 2-inch cookie cutter in powdered sugar and cut out dough pieces. Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheet. Any scraps of dough you have, press back together, and continue cutting. You should have approximately 18 cookies, but might be a couple more or a couple less depending how thick you rolled the dough. · Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes until the surface of the dough cracks. Do not overbake them or they will be dry. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes. They will be super soft and will fall apart if you try to pick them up right out of the oven. Don’t worry – they will set up and harden as they cool. · Fill a small bowl with powdered sugar. When the cookies have cooled slightly and they are hard enough to pick up, coat them in powdered sugar. It’s best to do this when they are still somewhat warm so the powdered sugar lightly melts on the surface. I like to give them two coats. Enjoy them right away or store them in an airtight container for up to a week.
|
