Cashew Cookies

I love cashews. Actually, I like a lot of nuts – pecans, walnuts (though Brazil nuts are an abomination). But cashews may be my favorite. So why not make them into cookies? What’s great about these are there are cashews in the cookie batter, cashews in the icing…then a cashew on top!

Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

Icing

1 ½ cups roasted cashews
½ cup heavy cream
½ cup powdered sugar
4 T maple syrup
¼ cup butter, softened to room temperature
¼ t lemon zest
2 T lemon juice
2 t vanilla
Pinch salt
Roasted cashew halves for topping (1 per cookie)

1 ¾ cups roasted cashews
2 cups flour
1 t baking soda
½ t baking powder
Pinch salt
¼ cup butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg, brought to room temperature
1 t vanilla
1/3 cup sour cream

Directions

Just a heads up – these take a while because you have to let some ingredients sit for a while – read on, you’ll see. Just alerting you that this isn’t a “dump everything in a bowl and go” cookie.

Ok, we’ll start with the icing, go to the cookies, then go back to the icing. Cool?

Get a small pot, fill it about 2/3 full and boil the water. As soon as it starts boiling, take it off the heat and let it cool for 3-4 minutes. Basically, we just want very hot water. Put the 1 ½ cups of cashews into the water and let them soak for an hour.

While they’re soaking…on to the cookies.

Start by getting your cashews and coarsely chopping them. Set them aside. Put the other dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt) into a small bowl and whisk until well combined. Set this aside as well.

In a large bowl put the butter and brown sugar and mix until nice and fluffy – at least 5 minutes. Add in the egg and vanilla and mix again until well blended.

Next add half the dry ingredients to this large bowl, mix, then half the sour cream and mix again. Repeat – add the remaining half of the dry ingredients, mix, and finally the remaining half of the sour cream and mix again until everything is well blended. Put away your mixer.

Add the 1 ¾ cups chopped cashews and mix with a wooden spoon until they’re well distributed.

Put ping-pong ball sized balls of dough onto cooking sheets lined with parchment paper and bake at 350 for about 10 minutes, or until they’re a nice golden brown.

Transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

While your cookies are cooling you can get back to the icing.

After the hour of soaking, drain the cashews and dab them with a paper towel. Throw the cashews along with ALL the rest of the ingredients for the icing into a blender, except the roasted cashew halves that you’re using for topping – you’re saving those for the end.

Blend until the whole mixture is nice and creamy. Put the mixture into the fridge for an hour (leave it in the blender cup).

After an hour, take it out and blend it again until it’s at a workable texture, and frost your cookies! Add a cashew half on top of each one and these are ready to go!