By marian 29 Comments
Well, hello there! I can’t tell you how glad I am to be back here with you, sharing some more sweets and recipes and hearing about your baking adventures too.
I don’t know about you, but the oncoming winter and holiday season has put me in the mood to bake and create. As a result, I’ve got a new, buttery, nutty-flavored cutout cookie recipe for you, Almond Hazelnut Sugar Cookies.
Perfectly paired with royal icing, it’s my new favorite. The classic sugar cookie with a twist, and it holds its shape for the cookie decorating canvas.
I’m sure it helped contribute to the wintry themed cookies I’m sharing today– I’m loving my new sweater from Ricki’s! Anyone who knows me well knows I love clothes, so I was happy to combine two of my favorite things in one place.
As a lovelylittle bonus for my Canadian friends (I’m sorry to my international sweet friends!), I’m hosting an Instagram giveaway for a $50 dollar gift card from Ricki’s! To enter, follow Ricki’s on Instagram @rickisfashion, and leave me a comment on Instagram (here) letting me know you’ve done that. Tag a friend in another comment on Instagram for another entry. (Giveaway begins 9:00 am EST Thursday, November 23rd, 2017 and goes until Friday, December 1st, 2017). Hope that’s as clear as mud! Let me know if you have any questions in the comment section below, and happy baking and shopping!
Cookie Decorating Tips, Tools & Recipes
Below are all the recipes, decorating tips and tools you’ll need to make these cookies. I’ve shared some of my basic cookie decorating tutorials and flooding and piping lines,but please let me know in the comment section if you have more specific questions about these cookies.
Royal Icing
You can find my favoriteroyal icing recipe here. The consistency of icing is key for easy decorating.Click hereto see a YouTube video on finding the right icing thickness.
Decorating Items
What you’ll need (These are affiliate links):
- Piping Tips –PME #1, PME #1.5,PME#2,PME #3
- Piping Bags
- Couplers
- Gel paste colors
- Scribe ToolorToothpicks
Decorating Steps
This videoon outlining and flooding is a good place to start if you’re new to decorating cookies with royal icing. These cookie decorating basicsYouTube videosmay also be helpful to get you started.
For piping lines, you’ll need thick icing. If you dip a spoon into the icing and pull straight upwards and lift the spoon away, the icing should form a stiff peak. If you need some tips on piping lines, here’s a video sharing my tips:
{Video} How to Pipe Straight Lines with Royal Icing
Click here if you can’t see the video.
Short Video of these I made on Instagram:
Thanks to C.R. Gibson for the cookie design inspiration! The polar bear and color scheme are from a set of holiday stickers made by them.
Happy baking and decorating!
xo,
Marian
Print Recipe
Almond Hazelnut Sugar Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup hazelnut flour or hazelnut meal
- 1 tsp salt
Instructions
Cream the butter and sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer on low to medium speed. (Use the paddle attachment). Mix until thoroughly incorporated - for about one minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a plastic spatula and mix again for a few seconds more. Over mixing the butter and sugar in this step will cause too much air to be incorporated into the dough. If you'd like a light and fluffy cookie, that's ideal, however the dough will spread more during baking; not ideal if you'd like the cookie to hold its shape.
Add eggs slowly and mix. Scrape down the bowl with your spatula at least once and mix again.
Add almond extract. Stir to incorporate.
Place your dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk together. (All purpose flour, hazelnut flour and salt).
Add all of the flour mixture to the bowl. Place a large tea towel or two small tea towels between the edge of the bowl and the electric mixer so that the flour won't escape. Mix on low speed for 30 seconds. Remove the tea towels and observe the dough mixing; when it clumps around the paddle attachment it's ready. It's also important at this stage not to over mix the dough (the glutens in the flour develop and the dough can become tough).
Roll the dough out between 2 large pieces of parchment paper. Place on a baking sheet and into the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour.
Roll out the dough further if you need to, and cut out cookie shapes. Place on parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Re-roll scraps and repeat.
Put cookie dough shapes back into the fridge for 10 minutes to 1 hour to chill again. They will then hold their shape better when baked.
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 176°C.
Bake cookies for 8-12 minutes or until the edges become golden brown. The baking time will depend on the size of your cookie.
Let cookies cool to room temperature and decorate!
Notes
Yield - Makes approx. 35 medium sized cookies.
Butter - The butter needs to be soft, or room temperature. I leave mine out the night before I do my baking. If you forget, you can grate the butter on the largest hole of your box grater, so that the sugar and butter will mix together better.
Baking powder - I don't use baking powder or any other leavening agent in my cutout cookie recipes because the dough will spread and rise more during baking, thereby making the shape of the cookie less crisp.
Chill your dough if it gets too soft work with.
Tips on stopping cookies from spreadingduring baking.
Tips on stopping cookies from spreading during baking.
