We loved making these chocolate-almond cookies for our TikTok channel: COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK. Despite Mark’s fear of the pastry bag, they’re (relatively!) easy to pull off. And they went like wildfire at a recent book discussion group mark led.
Chocolate Almond Horns
Makes about 24 crescent-shaped cookies
4 large egg whites, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon table salt
Two 7-ounce or 200-gram tubes of almond paste
2/3 cup or 135 grams granulated white or caster sugar
3 tablespoons or 26 grams all-purpose or plain flour
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 ounces or 85 grams semisweet chocolate, grated
1/2 cup or 45 grams sliced almonds, roughly chopped
1. Position the rack in the center of the oven; heat the oven to 350F or 175C. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Mix the egg whites and salt in a small bowl with a fork until frothy.
3. Cut the almond paste into the sugar in a large bowl, using a pastry cutter or two forks; continue working until the mixture resembles coarse meal.
4. Add the flour and vanilla. Use an electric mixer to beat at medium speed until fairly smooth if still coarsely grained, a little less than 1 minute.
5. Remove about 1 tablespoon or 15 milliliters from the frothy egg whites and place it in a second small bowl, reserving it for later.
6. With the beaters running at low speed, pour half the remaining egg white mixture into the batter in a thin stream. Continue beating until smooth. Then beat in the remainder of the egg white mixture in 2-teaspoon or 10-milliliter increments until the mixture is thick and pasty, too wet to roll out but not as wet as icing, about like sticky peanut butter. You’ll probably have 1 or 2 teaspoons of beaten egg white left over; add this to the reserved amount of egg whites.
7. Stir the grated chocolate slowly and gently into the batter.
8. Fit a pastry bag with a round, 3/4-inch or 2-centimeter tip. Fill the bag with the wet dough, squeezing it down toward the tip. Pipe the dough out onto the prepared baking sheet, making a curved, crescent-shaped horn about 5 inches or 12 1/2 centimeters long. Continue making these horns, spacing them about 2 inches or 5 centimeters apart.
9. Brush them lightly with the reserved egg white mixture, then sprinkle with the sliced almonds.
10. Bake until the cookies are lightly browned and firm to the touch, between 16 and 20 minutes. (Timing is a matter of the liquid content of the almond paste.) Cool the cookies completely on the baking sheet before removing them for storage.