Cookies for a loved one "You are my starlet"

Made from crumbly shortcrust pastry with aromatic spices and crispy almond petals, these star-shaped cookies will surely decorate your dessert table for any occasion. The original recipe was taken by me from one of the issues of the magazine "Liza" (unfortunately, I do not remember exactly which one).

Ingredients

• 1. For the test:
• butter 82.5% fat 125 gr.
• brown (cane) granulated sugar grade "Demerara" 100 gr.
• 1 medium egg (weighing about 65-68 gr.)
• a pinch of salt
• wheat flour of the highest grade 250-260 gr.
• baking powder for dough 1 teaspoon flat
• 1 pinch cardamom
• ground cloves ⅓ tsp
• ground cinnamon ½ teaspoon with a slide
• natural vanilla sugar or vanillin ½ tsp flat
• grated zest of 1 medium lemon, lime or orange, weighing about 100-120 gr., 85-90 gr. or about 150-160 gr. respectively
• kernels of almonds or walnuts 100 gr.
• 2. For sprinkling the dough (optional):
• almond petals 50 gr.

Directions

1. Take the butter out of the refrigerator 1 to 2 hours before making the biscuits and leave it at room temperature until ready to use. Or just before cooking, microwave it to a creamy consistency.
2. Peel the almonds, then chop them
3. If you are using almonds in your recipe, peel the dark skin (if any). To do this, you need to throw the kernels into boiling water and boil in it for 1-1.5 minutes, then put them in a colander and immediately pour cold water over them and let them lie in it for a couple of minutes. After such a temperature contrast, you can easily remove the shell of each nut with your fingers, simply by squeezing its core out of it. While you peel the nuts one by one, do not remove the remaining ones from the water so that the shell does not stick back to the kernels. Dry the finished kernels on a paper towel for 30 minutes before use, and then grind in a blender into fine grains. Simply grind the walnuts in a blender (without peeling them).
4. Prepare the ingredients for making the dough
5. Measure out the remaining dough ingredients required by the recipe, while mixing the wheat flour with baking powder, salt and spices.
6. Put sugar in a dry skillet to heat
7. Pour half of the entire norm of granulated sugar (50 g) evenly on a dry aluminum frying pan and put it on low heat. Bring the sugar to a point where it melts a little, and stir it with a spoon so that it begins to gather into lumps (this can take 5-7 minutes). Then immediately remove the pan from the heat, pour the sugar onto a plate to cool. Set it aside for now.
8. Wash the orange thoroughly, then pour over it with boiling water and dry it
9. Wash the lemon (or lime / orange) with soap and boiling water in a separate container to remove the layer of preservatives from the surface. Pat dry with a paper towel and set aside.
10. Mix butter, sugar and egg
11. In a large container for kneading dough with a volume of about 3-3.5 liters, mix very soft butter with the remaining granulated sugar with a mixer with ordinary whisks, then break an egg there and mix everything well again.
12. Add part of the dry mixture with spices to the mixture
13. Add 100 gr. To the egg-oil mixture. from the total amount of wheat flour with salt and spices, pre-sifting it through a fine sieve.
14. Add zest, almonds and burnt sugar to the dough
15. Add to the dough finely grated lemon zest (or lime / orange), chopped almonds (or walnuts) and burnt sugar (see item 4), previously chopped in a blender or mortar into fine grains. Stir.
16. Add the remaining flour to the dough and knead thoroughly
17. Then add the remaining wheat flour to the dough, also sifting, remove the remaining ingredients from the whisks and quickly knead the whole dough with your hands so that it begins to lag behind them and the walls of the dishes.
18. Turn on the oven and heat it to 3.2 (180 ° C).
19. Line a baking tray for thin biscuits measuring 28 × 38 cm and a height of 1.5 cm (or any other baking tray of appropriate size) with non-stick baking paper.
20. Divide the dough in two and roll out into a thin layer
21. Divide the dough into 2 equal portions. Remove one in a bowl, without closing anything, into the refrigerator at a temperature of + 5-6 ° C, and roll the other into a layer about 0.5 cm thick (it is advisable to pre-cover the table with non-stick paper so that the dough does not stick to it, or use a special silicone mat).
22. Cut out dough pieces, sprinkle them with almond petals and place on a baking sheet
23. Using a star-shaped mold that fits into a circle of Ø 6.5 cm, or a glass of the appropriate diameter (if you do not have special molds), cut out cookie cutters from the dough. Sprinkle them with ½ part of the almond petals (if you use them in the recipe), lightly rub over them with a rolling pin so that they press a little into the dough, and then place the cookie cutters on a baking sheet with almond petals facing down.
24. Gather the rest of the dough into a ball again (it's okay if the almond petals, which were sprinkled with the layer, are mixed with the dough) and again do everything that is described in paragraphs. 12-14, starting with rolling out the layer (except for sprinkling the dough with almond petals).
25. Bake almond cookies until cooked
26. Place the baking sheet with the pieces in the oven and bake the cookies at 3.2 (180 ° C) for about 12-14 minutes until the bottom of the pieces is slightly golden or according to the instructions in the instructions for your oven for baking shortbread cookies. 7-8 minutes after the start of baking, it is advisable to turn the baking sheet with the blanks on the other side to ensure they are baked evenly. Remove the finished cookies from the oven, cool a little (5 minutes) on a baking sheet, and then gently (carefully - they are very fragile) transfer them with a pastry spatula onto a plate or into a deep bowl to cool completely. Then you can serve them to the table. SecondTake half of the dough out of the refrigerator and proceed with it in the same way as described in p. 12-15, starting from the rolling out of the seam.
27. Store ready-made cookies at room temperature in an open container for up to 6-7 days (so they remain crumbly and crunchy) or in a sealed container, for example, a tin can, for 3-4 days.