Kourabiedes

The idea of these delicious Christmas biscuits came to us from the TV

Ingredients

200g ground almonds
320g butter (soft/at room temperature)
250g sugar
1 egg yolk
10 ml eau-de-vie (strong alcohol)
pinch of salt
500g flour
100 ml orange juice (plus a little extra for finishing)
pinch ground cloves
300g icing sugar
Oven temperature 180* C

Preparation

Toast the ground almonds in an ungreased frying pan and leave to cool down. Cream the butter, sugar, egg yolk and salt together until they resemble whipped cream.

Stir in the alcohol, flour and enough orange juice to obtain a soft dough. Add the pinch of cloves to the ground almonds and mix them into the dough. Then cool it in the fridge for about 30 minutes..

Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface until it is one or two cms thick.

Cut into biscuits, slightly flatten them and arrange on a baking tray lined with baking (greaseproof) paper. Bake in pre-heated oven at 180*C for 20-25 minutes.

Meanwhile put the icing sugar in a bowl. As soon as they are cooked coat the biscuits with orange juice and dip them in the icing sugar to obtain a nice thick sugary coating.

Elke Schwichtenberg/Christian Büttner (Grayan-et-l'Hôpital), translation: Margaret and Richard Beasley