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Almond Biscuits
2 ounces of almonds 2 ounces flour 1/2 ounce sugar 1 tablespoon of milk Blanch the almonds, and put them through a nut mill twice; mix well with the sugar and flour. Add the milk, and mix all thoroughly together. Roll out fairly thin, cut into small rounds and bake in a quick oven for ten to fifteen minutes.
A plain almond biscuit in the British sense — a thin, crisp round closer to a cracker than to a cookie. There is no fat and no leavening, so the whole thing depends on grinding the almonds fine enough to release their own oil.
- Weights, not cups2 oz almonds is about 1/2 cup whole nuts; 2 oz flour is a scant 1/2 cup; 1/2 oz sugar is roughly 1 tablespoon. A scale is worth using here, since the flour-to-almond ratio is what keeps the dough workable.
- A quick ovenRoughly 400-425F. At that heat thin rounds may colour before the full fifteen minutes -- check at eight and pull them when the edges are golden.
- The nut millGrinding twice is the hinge of the recipe: the almonds must be reduced to a fine, slightly oily meal, or the dough will not hold together. A rotary nut mill or spice grinder works; in a food processor, pulse with some of the flour to keep the almonds from turning to paste.
- BlanchingPour boiling water over the almonds, let them stand a minute or two, drain, and slip off the skins. Dry them well before grinding or the meal will clump.
- One tablespoon of milkThis is barely enough to bring the dough together and may not be, depending on how oily the almond meal is. Add a teaspoon more at a time until it just coheres under the hand — a wet dough will spread and toughen.
- Rolling"Fairly thin" means about 1/8 inch. Roll between sheets of parchment; the dough is short and crumbly and will crack if pushed. Scraps can be pressed together and rerolled once.
- Yield and keepingAbout 15 to 20 small rounds from a 2-inch cutter. They are dry biscuits and keep well for a week in a tin, but go soft in humidity — a few minutes back in a low oven revives them.
- ServingAlmost unsweetened, so they suit cheese, or a dusting of sugar and cinnamon before baking if you want them as a tea biscuit.
Almonds were a standard workaround in meatless cookery long before anyone counted grams of protein: ground nuts stood in for the richness of meat and dairy in Lenten cooking. The recipe belongs to the older English tradition of the biscuit as a hard, twice-baked or thin-rolled keeping bread rather than a soft cake -- the word itself comes from the Old French bescuit, "twice-cooked." What is striking is the restraint: half an ounce of sugar to two ounces of flour, and no butter at all, so the almond's own oil has to do the shortening.