Chocolate Cookies (Calabria)

Desserts

Ingredients

Almonds - 1 2/3 cups

Honey - 1/2 cup

Ground cinnamon - pinch

Clove, pounded or a pinch of powdered cloves - 1

Cocoa - 1 1/2 cups

Weak coffee - 5 tbsps

All purpose flour - 1 cup

Butter or rice paper

Confectioners sugar - 1 1/2 cups

Egg white, lightly beaten - 1

Lemon juice

Blanch the almonds for 1 minute and peel them as soon as they are cool enough to handle. Toast them in a slow oven (350F) for a few minutes, then chop or crush them until reduced to a powder.

Put the powdered almonds in a bowl, add the honey, cinnamon and clove. Blend the cocoa with the coffee and mix this into the almond-honey mixture. Sift in the flour and knead the mixture to a smooth dough, adding a little more coffee if necessary.

Roll the dough out on a floured pastry board to a thickness of about 3/4 inch, and cut out small fancy shapes - crowns, puppets, animals, stars, etc.

Lightly butter a baking sheet or line it with rice paper and arrange the pastry shapes on it evenly spaced apart. Bake in a moderate oven (375F) for about 15 mins,, or until golden. Cool.

Prepare the icing. Sift the sugar into a bowl and blend with the egg white and a few drops of lemon juice. As soon as the icing is smooth, spread a little over each cookie, smoothing it down with the blade of a wet knife.