Chinese Restaurant Almond Cookies

"Haha, I had this recipe in my cupboard but tweeked it a little. I make it every year during the holidays and everyone scrambles for more - in fact my mother-in-law hides them from the kids so she can ..." See morefinish them herself!! What I tweeked was using almond slivers instead of whole almonds and added a light eggwash glaze before putting the almond on top. Gives a great golden colour, or I suppose you could use food colouring. Cutting in the butter (I use half butter, half butter flavoured Crisco) is a must! It keeps the center moist. I make my cookies a little bigger, so they cook for 20mins on 325*F. I also upped the sugar by 1/4c. and doubled the almond extract (trippling it gives a rich almond flavour). They come out looking a bit undone, but prick them with a toothpick and you'll see that they're well done :) Even without the eggwash, they're darn good!!"

"I also used half butter and half (butter-flavored) Crisco. Fabulous results, but I must mention I made half shaped as balls, and put half through my cookie press. I strongly preferred the latter. The ..." See morepresentation was nice, but the crunch of the little ones was awesome! For those, I used an interesting disk shape, and arranged almond slices on top to go along with the design. Beautiful! I'll go heavier on the extract next time."

"these were so easy and they tasted great. I rolled the dough into a log and chilled it. Then I used my Pampered Chef crinkle cutter to cut them into about 1/4" slices. Placed a couple almond slices o..." See moren each one and baked them. My mother-in-law asked me where I bought them. :-) how cool is that!"