Rum-Buttered Almond Cookies

Preheat the oven to 350 and line a large baking sheet with parchment.  In a small bowl make the rum butter by whisking together the melted butter, rum, icing sugar and salt.  Use a pastry brush to brush the parchment where you’re going to place the cookies – they don’t spread so you can plan for them to be quite close together.

In a large bowl, whisk together almond flour, icing sugar and salt for a good minute to make sure they’re thoroughly combined and then make a small well in the middle.  In a separate bowl, beat together the egg whites, egg, almond extract and rum – I used my hand mixer for this – then pour it into the prepared well and use a sturdy spatula to combine until there are no visible dry spots.

Use a large cookie scoop (2 tablespoon-sized) to make mounds and then drop each into the sliced almonds to roll/press/shape.  You want round balls, covered in almond slices that won’t fall off.  Place each complete ball onto the prepared parchment, onto a rum-buttered area and when the pan is full, brush the tops with more rum butter.  Bake for 18-22 minutes until golden and set and then as soon as the cookies come out of the oven, brush again with more rum butter.  Leave them to rest on the baking sheet for several minutes before carefully removing them to a rack to cool completely.  I haven’t tried freezing these, but they kept perfectly into a covered container for a few days.