Walnut Diamond Cookies

I have adapted this recipe from the Dec. 2009 issue of Prevention magazine. As I was browsing thru it, this recipe instantly caught my eye - for one, it was eggless and secondly the combination of nuts, spices and sugar seemed irresistable to me. The original recipe used pecans and cinnamon, but I instantly decided to replace with walnuts and all-spice blend. I always stock both these since they are on top of my favorites list. All-spice is usually a blend of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.

Here's how I make these cookies:

1/3 cup walnuts - microwave at 30 second intervals for 3 mins in all and cool
1/2 cup plain flour
2 heaped tbsp whole wheat flour
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp all-spice powder
2 heaped tbsp granulated sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter - at room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tbsp powdered sugar

In a clean, dry bowl, mix the plain flour, wheat flour, salt and all-spice.
In a mini food processor, chop the toasted walnuts with 3 tbsp of the flour mixture until the texture of fine crumbs is achieved.
Add this nut-flour mixture back into the flour mixture in the bowl.
In another bowl, combine the granulated sugar, butter and vanilla extract. Beat together until well combined. This can be done either manually or with an electric hand mixer. For the quantity given above, I usually do it manually, but use an electric mixer to make a bigger batch.
Gradually add the nut-flour mixture to the butter-sugar mix. Mix well and form into a big ball.
Pat this ball down on an aluminium foil. Then using a rolling pin, roll it out till it is about 1/4 inch thick evenly. The cookie dough is not at all sticky and you should be able to easily roll it out. Also, it does not really matter if you roll it out into a square/rectangle/circle.
Then cut the rolled dough into diamond shapes or any other shape per your choice.
Place on a baking sheet (along with the foil)
Bake in a pre-heated 350F oven for 20 minutes or till the edges are golden brown.
Cool the cookies, sift powdered sugar lightly over them and enjoy.






This quantity yields about 1 dozen diamond-shaped cookies.