The Demon Oven

Thank God the holidays are over. I can finally stop baking.
Who am I kidding?  I never stop baking.  Here’s proof. I just stayed up until 12:30 a.m. baking cookies for my sister-in-law’s birthday. Today is January 6th. Her birthday was October 7th.
But that’s why I had to bake cookies, I rationalized. This way she’ll know she’s special even though I’m three months late. They’re restitution cookies.  Some people grovel with flowers and candy, I grovel with cookies.

It made sense, and since I missed every birthday in my family this year, I had lots of restitution cookies to catch up on. I mailed them out at Christmas and this is my last batch.
I wanted them to be perfect because when they’re perfect, they’re really good. But my restitution’s been thwarted by my demon oven.

It’s not my oven, it’s my apartment’s oven and I hate it. It burns my cookies. I have to make sure I turn the temperature down and bake for less time when I bake. I always have to second guess the oven. It sucks.

Particularly since I used to have a wonderful kitchen with double ovens and convection and a cooktop to die for… it was heaven. But that was before the divorce. There’s not a lot that I miss about that time, but I sure do miss that kitchen.

So, I’m naming the apartment oven Satan.  I think it’s important for people to see that not everyone with a baking blog is perfect all the time. Quite frankly, perfection is suspicious.

So, just know that the cookies… when baked in a good oven (which the first batch was because I went to Costco and sprang for a nice little Oster Convection Oven/Toaster) turn out great. In a Satanic oven, all bets are off.

The cookies are almond cookies that my mom and I created. We got the recipe out of an old cookbook years ago. It was for Almond Tea Cookies. We turned them into Almond flavored cookies with almond icing and a sliver of Maraschino cherry on top. They melt in your mouth.

And even if they burn like mine did, they’re still good because they’re crunchy,  just not as beautiful.
They’re easy and tasty. Here’s the recipe:

Almond Cookies
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
2 cups flour
1 tsp. almond extract
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks and almond extract. Blend well, then add flour. Mix thoroughly. Form into 1 inch balls, place on ungreased baking sheet and flatten balls to 1/4 inch thick with the bottom of a lightly floured flat glass or cup. If you don’t dip the cup or glass into flour, it will stick to the cookies.  Bake at 325 for 15 minutes. Frost  and top with cherry slice when cooled.
 Almond Frosting: 
1 TBSP butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 TBSP whipping cream plus 1  tsp. milk
1 /2 tsp. almond flavoring
Dash of salt
Melt butter, stir in powdered sugar, cream, milk, almond flavoring and salt. Stir until completely smooth. Frost cookies with icing and place a 1/4 sliver of maraschino cherry on top.