Chinese Three-Spice Almond Crescent Cookies

A friend of mine left for a six month teaching gig in China this week, and in order to send her off in style I wanted to bake something for her. After much googling of 'Chinese desserts' I finally settled on a recipe for Chinese Five-Spice Almond Cookies from Whole Foods.


                               


It's a fairly basic recipe, and I had all that I needed. All except for the Chinese Five-Spice. Apparently there was a run on Chinese Five-Spice. Whodathunkit? So when I got home from a fruitless trip to the grocery store I dug around in my pantry and come up with three of the five spices in Chinese Five-Spice. And thus was born, the Chinese Three-Spice cookie.


Chinese Three-Spice Almond Crescent Cookie
slightly altered from the Whole Foods Chinese Five-Spice recipe
makes around 20 cookies

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup unsalted butter, in chunks
1/4 cup sugar
~1/8 tsp of cinnamon
~1/8 tsp ground ginger
~1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp salt
2 tsp almond extract

powdered sugar for dusting if desired


Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Put everything but the powdered sugar in a food processor and pulse until the dough gets crumbly. Then blend until it forms a soft dough.

Take a small pinch of dough, and roll it a bit to form a log. Shape the log of dough into a crescent. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until the cookies are fairly firm to the touch. Let cool on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack. Once the cookies are completely cool, dust them with powdered sugar if you'd like. These aren't a super sweet cookie, so I think most people would appreciate the little extra bit of sweetness.