March 16: Palm Sugar Cantucci

Palm Sugar Cantucci

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups (6 oz) white whole wheat or all-purpose flour
2/3 cup very firmly packed coconut palm sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup whole almonds, toasted

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and place a rack in the center. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or nonstick foil.
2. Mix the flour, coconut palm sugar, baking soda, and salt together in a medium-size bowl; set aside.
3. In a second bowl, using a handheld electric mixer on medium-high speed, or a whisk, beat the eggs until light ans fluffy. Beat in the vanilla.
4. Blend the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients by hand; the dough should be heavy and sticky.
5. Add the almonds. Using your hands, knead them into the dough so they are evenly distributed. The dough will be thick and crumbly. Wet your hands slightly and shape the dough into a log about 10x2.5 inches. Place the log on the prepared baking sheet.
6. Bake the log for 40 to 50 minutes, or until it becomes very dark and aromatic. It will spread quite a bit in the oven. Remove from the oven and let cool on the baking sheet for 20 minutes, leaving the oven on. Transfer the log to a large cutting board. Using a serrated knife, cut crosswise slightly on the diagonal every 1/2 to 3/4 inch. Place the cookies cut side up on the baking sheet. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Dry ingredients

Wet ingredients

Introduction of dry to wet

Before the oven

After the oven

Thoughts: I forgot to complete the last step. I baked them for 45 minutes, let them cool and cut them without rebaking the cut slices for 20 minutes. Oops. That's probably why they didn't have that tough biscotti-like texture...however, I thought they were pretty dry. They have a taste that I can't quite place and when I asked Patrick, he couldn't recognize it either (but he was sick and couldn't taste much!).

Side note: Before reading this recipe, I had never heard of coconut palm sugar. I found out that my local grocery store sold it, but I would have to buy a pound of it for $5.49. I was a little bummed, but I was going to go ahead and buy it (all for the mission of cookies!). Then we went to Canada for Patrick's birthday. We stopped at a mall in St. Catherines to browse the bookstore, Chapters. After we were done browsing, we went in the store that was across from Chapters called Bulk Barn (http://www.bulkbarn.ca/en-ca/index.html). It was an AWESOME store and hope they eventually open a franchise here in the US. They had rows of items that you could buy in bulk from candy to flour to cookies to coconut palm sugar. So I bought what I needed for just under $2 (I know it wasn't cost efficient, but it prevented a 80% full bag of palm sugar on my shelf for a year).