Pistachio Kourabiedes

soft, crumbly, butter cookies

KOURABIEDES! A powerful name for a powerful cookie. With variations within Ottoman and Arab cuisines, these cookies have been a delicious part of history for quite some time. The older a recipe, the longer it has been loved, so let the love live on by baking these cookies :)

Ingredients:

For the dough:

• 1 cup unsalted butter, cold, cubed

• 1 tbsp orange zest

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar

• 1/4 cup almond flour

• 1 tbsp rose water

• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste, or extract

• 3 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 tbsp baking powder

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 1/2 cup crushed roasted pistachios

For the sugar topping:

• 1 cup powdered sugar

• 1 cup roasted pistachios

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, combine the butter, orange zest, and sugar, and cut using a pastry cutter or your hands.

3. When the mixture becomes crumbly and no butter cubes remain, mix in the almond flour, rose water, and vanilla.

4. When fully combined, add in the flour, baking powder, salt, and crushed pistachios. The dough will be crumbly at first, but push and knead it together until no flour sticks to the bottom of the bowl.

5. Roll and shape the dough into your desired shapes, place on prepared baking sheets, and bake for 15-20 minutes or until edges are almost golden.

6. Let the cookies cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. While cooling, prepare the sugar topping by blending the pistachios until pulverized and mixing in the powdered sugar.

7. Roll the cooled cookies into the pistachio-sugar mixture and enjoy! The cookies are best fresh, but can last a week at room temperature when stored in an airtight container.