TBB: The Ischler

I like making cookies and eating cookies.  Except when it comes to rolled cookies, I tend to procrastinate a lot because of the waiting time. And because I have to wait for the dough to harden up in the fridge, I always forget about the dough...and usually the dough would end up resting in my fridge for a long time.


I know I'm not supposed to grind whole raw almonds mentioned in the book. But... I did it anyway!  I put the whole raw almonds (because I can't find sliced raw almonds..usually blanched ones here) into my mini-grinder and blitz them away.. and they turned out very fine and I added a bit of icing sugar to absorb the oil in case it turns oily...

The almonds all processed till fine.  Looked good to me! :D  

Then I transferred the ground almonds into my huge food processor and continued with the instructions on the recipe.  Add butter, flour etc. 

Dough is formed and feeling a bit wet. 

Cut the huge dough into quarters and wrapped in cling wrapped into the fridge. 

I was supposed to finished up the recipe that day..but as usual, while waiting for the dough to firm up in the fridge, I completely forgotten about it..till a week later..LOL!  

So after the dough rested 1 week in my fridge.. I finally took it out to roll them out and bake them.

You like my chinese frying ladle?  It is very versatile, can also be used as a cookie scoop...lol! 

Making ganache.  Ok..i went the lazy way. I just put the cream into the chocolate and microwave together. It's very hard to heat up 56g of cream in saucepan..plus one more item to wash later. So i put them together and microwave.  :)  

Look..it worked..! As long as it works, I guess no harm right? LOL!  

See how smooth my ganache turned out?  Oh ya..the left over Lekvar in bottle from way back when I first made them during HCB bake-through (1 or 2 years ago?.. don't judge me.. it can keep indefinitely!) 

Finally!!!   I sandwich most of the cookies with chocolate ganache and 6 of them with the apricot lekvar. That's because I thought the cookies will absorb the moisture from the lekvar making it soft. Over here where it is always humid, cookies/crackers/toast/etc turn soft easily if not kept in airtight containers. Thus we like our cookies crisp and crunchy and often associate soft cookies as stale. 

However, over the years, I have also learned to like soft cookies too.  :)  Changed my mindset that soft cookies = stale cookies. 

Because I was running out of time, I brought some cookies to office to take photos.  Day light makes the photos very pretty. Usually, I take my photos at night so always end up dull and full of shadow. 

Oh ya, I just found out that I was supposed to fill the cookies with half ganache and half lekvar??! Really? I did not remember reading that part! That's why I filled them up separately! LOL!  Oh well, nevermind.  Next time.  

Verdict: As I have predicted the cookies sandwiched with chocolate ganache stayed crisp and the ones with lekvar turned really soft.  I like the ones with chocolate ganache better. I also like that these cookies are not-too-sweet.. (see i said it again!! not too sweet!..LOL!).  The sweetness level is just right!  Loving the almond speckle on the cookies, I think the speckles make the cookies look very pretty on its own. 

I got my office colleagues to try and they liked the ones with chocolate ganache better too.