hazelnut butter cookies

or, the easiest, speediest, tastiest 4-ingredient cookie ever.
a lot of people i know don't like making cookies. it's not because they're difficult to make. they're not. but they are time-consumming, and messy, if they're the kind you roll out. what drives me up the wall is the way a cookie dough will turn into unworkable mush the second it detects the smallest amount of warmth. then you gotta chill it, and then it's hard to work with because it's cold. within a second it's mush again. make up your mind, cookie! what do you want to be?!
well this cookie wants to be a pillow. a pillow of buttery, feathery awesomness. i think they actually floated out of the oven, they're so light. you can't touch them at all those first few minutes. one finger poke and they disintegrate, like a dream you can't hold on to when you wake up.

you do need a food processor to make these, or something to grind up the hazelnuts. although i guess if you had to mix them by hand, they wouldn't be quite so easy peasy.

hazelnut butter cookies

recipe from epicurious.com

1 cup or 150 gr hazelnuts

1/2 cup or 110 gr granulated sugar

1 1/2cups or 210 gr all-purpose flour

2 sticks or 226 gr butter, cold and cut in pieces

a couple squares of chocolate, melted, optional

preheat oven to 350F or 170C. toast the hazelnuts 6-7 minutes, until frangrant and golden. let them cool a minute, then put them in a kitchen towel and rub the skins off. pulse the nuts with the sugar in the food processor until finely ground, don't let them go to paste. then add the flour with a pinch of salt (no sifting needed, thank you very much) and pulse to mix well. add the butter, all at once, and pulse a few times, until you get that wet sand look. pinch it with two fingers - if it stays clumped you're good to go. gather into a ball and turn onto a floured surface. split the dough in two equal pieces and roll into logs about 1 inch thick. wrap in plastic. chill at least one hour, up to overnight. or place in the freezer for 10 minutes, if you can't wait. or chill one and freeze the other. anyhoo, when you're ready simply slice crosswise into 1/3 inch or 1 cm thick slices. it's a good idea to put your baking sheet in the freezer for 5 minutes. then line it with parchment, and slice directly on the sheet. arrange cookies 1 inch apart and bake about 15 minutes. oven temperatures vary, be sure to watch them 8-10 minutes in. the edges will be barely golden. the middle will look just set, but not wet. do not touch - your imprint will stay there. let cool a few minutes on the sheet, then pull the entire parchment onto the rack. they're very delicate while they're still hot. when they're cool you can drizzle chocolate on top.

there are two things i messed with. first, i doubled the recipe right off the bat. that part was a bit compulsive. then, the recipe instructs you to wait 2 minutes after taking them out of the oven, and dip tops in sugar. this i find uninteresting and somewhat unappetizing, not to mention completely impossible to do. these things crumble if you frown in their direction. i drizzled some milk chocolate instead - would've gone with dark, but that's not in my toddler's top 10. delicious the first day, even better the second. one log yields 16 cookies.