Chocolate Almond Cookies

Tony Wong's recipe

Ingredients:

150g  Unsalted Butter

150g  Granulated Sugar

50g   Egg

150g  Almond Slices

260g Cake Flour (sifted)

40g   Cocoa Powder (sifted)

1.  Cream unsalted butter and sugar.  Pour in beaten egg.  Beat until mixture light and fluffy.

2.  Add almond slices.  Stir well.

3.  Fold in sifted cake flour and cocoa powder.  Stir gently and just mix.

4.  Rub to brown dough with hands.

5.  Line a piece of parchment paper on a shallow tray.  Press dough into a rectangle of the same height as tray.  

6.  Cover the dough with baking paper.

7.  Use a rolling pin to roll over dough.  Level surface to even height.  Freeze until firm.

8.  Peel off parchment paper.  Cut hardened dough to rectangles of 5 cm length x 2.5 cm width x 5mm thick.

9.  Bake at 350F for 18 - 20 minutes.  

I visited Tony Wong's Patisserie when I was in Hong Kong.  We saw people lining up outside of the shop waiting for their turn.  I wasn't expecting too much of it, thinking it's probably just another hype.  People usually do take-out, but the four of us couldn't wait and decided to consume the beautifully decorated cakes there.  We were totally surprised of how good the cakes were.  Each has a distinct complex flavour, hitting our taste buds at different levels.  It was almost an orgasmic experience.  

A while ago, a good friend of mine gave me two Tony Wong's recipe books.  I have read them and these Chocolate Almond Cookies are probably among the easiest to make.  I found them much lighter than the usual shortbread.  This recipe yields about 50 good size cookies and only called for 150g of butter (1/3 of the package) so somehow I feel less guilty making (and eating) them.