almond half moons

INGREDIENTS

250 g all-purpose flour
65 g white sugar
105 g ground almonds
225 g unsalted butter
0.5 whole vanilla bean

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (170 degrees C).
Mix dry ingredients. Cut in butter with pastry blender, then quickly knead into a dough.
Shape dough into logs and cut off 1/2 inch pieces. Shape each piece into a crescent and place on a non-stick paper lined cookie sheet.
Bake approximately 8 to 10 minutes. Cool 1 minute and carefully roll in vanilla sugar. (To make vanilla sugar, blend 1/2 vanilla bean with 1 cup of sugar, sieve). Tip: vanilla sugar comes out like powered sugar, to make it stick to the cookie better, I mix it with regular sugar.

Traditional Gingerbread biscuits

These gingerbread biscuits are the best recipe I've found and have been the most popular with everyone that has tried them. They contain no ginger!
Unfortunately when I wrote this recipe out many,many years ago and used some sort of electronic paper that slowly has faded the text.
Fortunately I had typed this recipe out for friends and hope that they can fill in the gaps for me.

1 egg

2 tblsp black treacle

2 tspns ground mace

2 tspns ground cinnamon

250g butter

oz of plain flour or dark rye flour

castor sugar
2 tspns dark chocolate powder
baking powder

What to do

Mix together egg, treacle, sugar and spices in a bowl. Melt butter, when it begins to cool blend into mixture. Sift baking powder and flour into mixture and using hands bind well and shape into a round ball. Cover with cling film and chill for 30 minutes.
Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees and grease several baking trays. Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface a little thicker than usual . Cut into shapes, place onto greased trays and bake in oven for 15-20 minutes.

Adult Chocolate macaroons

Chocolate macaroons
125g plain chocolate
100g granulated sugar
30g coco powder , Valrhona Chocolate or Scharffen Berger Cocoa powder
140g desiccated coconut
50g almond meal
1tspn almond essence or rum !
2 egg whites
60g each of white and dark chocolate, Callebaut Chocolate

Do This
Melt chocolate and set aside to cool.
Whisk egg whites until they form a soft peak. Add 3-4 tablespoons
of the sugar and mix until the mixture is glossy and firm. Fold in the remaining sugar,
chocolate and coconut, followed by the almond essence.

Place rounded spoonfuls of the mixture 2.5 cm apart on prepared baking sheets.
Bake in the pre-heated oven for 15-18 minutes until the macaroons are dry on the outside
But moist and soft in the centre.
Melt the chocolates for the decoration separately. Half-dip the biscuits in to one or the other
Chocolate. Lay on silicon paper to dry.
Spoon the remaining chocolate into a piping bag and pipe contrasting lines over the macaroons.