Almond Roca Cookies

Submitted by Sharon123

"This recipe came from Lynn Scully, Rancho Santa Fe, California via Emeril's Holiday Cookie show. And it's a show stopper!"

 

• Ready In: 52mins
• Ingredients: 12
• Yields: 3 dozen
• Serves: 36

ingredients

• 2 1⁄2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1⁄4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar, dark preferably
• 1⁄2 cup sugar
• 1 cup butter, at room temperature
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 1⁄2 teaspoons vanilla extract, pure
• 16 ounces toffee pieces (or 12 oz)
• 1 cup coarsely ground almonds
• 4 ounces milk chocolate
• 1⁄2 tablespoon vegetable oil

directions

1. Preheat oven to 300°F.
2. In a medium size mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
3. In bowl of an electric mixer, blend both sugars together at medium speed. Add butter and mix to form a grainy paste. Add eggs and vanilla and mix at medium speed until it's light and fluffy. At low speed, slowly add flour mixture and then toffee bits. Mix until it's just blended; don't over-mix.
4. Place the ground almonds in a small bowl. Using your hands, roll balls of dough into 1 to 1 1/2-inch balls, then roll in the ground almonds. Place on cookie sheets several inches apart. Bake about 22 minutes and transfer cookies to a cooling rack.
5. Melt the chocolate with the vegetable oil in a double boiler or in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Drizzle melted chocolate over the cooled cookies. Place cookies on a cookie sheet and place in freezer or refrigerator until chocolate is firmly set.

Reviews

[PaulaG]

I have found a great new holiday cookie. These are a little messy but so worth it. I lined my cookie sheets with parchment paper. Make sure that you leave plenty of space between them as they do spread and make cookies that are slightly crisp on the edges and chewy in the center. I cooked my cookies for 25 minutes. The cookies are quite soft when removing from the oven therefore I would suggest allowing them to cool for several minutes to firm up before attempting the transfer to the cooling racks. The only change I made was with the drizzling chocolate, I used shortening with the chocolate instead of oil. I made these into 1 inch balls and got 38 delicious cookies.

 

[MummaKat]

Used Skor bars for the toffee, mmm good! And with the chocolate from the Skor bars you don't need to drizzle more chocolate on top. Good thing, given my microwave was on the fritz so no way to melt the chocolate.

 

[Curlee]

Fantastic cookies! I added a bit more flour, about 10 ounces of toffee pieces, drizzled with dark chocolate that had 1/2 tablespoon of shortening. Baked 15 cookies per cookie sheet. Brought them to a Holiday party and received many compliments. They never made it to the freezer.

 

[Sydney Mike]

Made as given in the recipe, & thoroughly enjoyed by everyone at an early New Year's celebration (several days ago, that is)! AND, another cookie that is worth freezing & enjoying later, & that's especially great for those of us who might otherwise eat 'em all ourselves before they have a chance to cool completely! Thanks for sharing! [Tagged & made in Please Review My Recipe]

 

[Crunchy Numbers]

Really good! One-inch balls of dough made the perfect size cookie and took 22 mintues to bake one tray at a time. I really liked the almonds...next time I will try sprinkling some extra on top of each dough ball before baking.