Walnut Sugar Cookies

A week after I made these delicious cookies I dreamed about making them again. I promise the next time I do, I’ll take better pictures. These could very well be my favourite cookies ever. Perhaps that’s why I was so distracted, I forgot to keep my camera out! There’s that and by the time I made these cookies the little bit of light we had that day had gone away. Ah, such is life on the sometimes dreary northern coast of BC in the winter.

This recipe originally came from Dayna at Vegan Visitor. Here’s what I did:

Walnut Sugar Cookies

• 1 1/2 cup Walnuts
• 2 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 cup Butter, softened
• 1 cup Icing Sugar, plus more for dusting
• 2 tbsp Cointreau
• 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 2 tbsp Orange Zest, optional

1. Toast the walnuts in a 350ºF oven, until golden brown.
2. Pulse about 1/2 cup of the nuts in a food processor until finely ground.
3. Add the flour, baking powder, remaining nuts and salt to the food processor and pulse again to mix everything together and roughly chop the remaining nuts.
4. Beat the butter, sugar, Cointreau, vanilla extract, zest together until fluffy.
5. Stir in the nut/flour mixture to make a crumbly dough and then finish bringing the dough together with your hands. Flatten into a disk, like pastry dough, and wrap it in cling flim.
6. Refrigerate dough for about half an hour.
7. Preheat oven to 350º F and line cookie sheets with parchment.
8. Roll dough into balls between with your hands. Flattening to shape each piece into a round disk. Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheets.
9. Bake until the cookies are golden, about 15 minutes.
10. Remove them from the oven and optionally lightly brush with a little more Cointreau over the tops of each cookie.
11. Transfer to a cooling rack and dust with more icing sugar.