Chocolate Butter Cookies with Cappuccino Jordan Almonds

Oh! Nuts sent me a bag of their Jordan almonds to feature in a recipe for a contest. I was able to choose any flavor I wanted, so I opted for a flavor near and dear to my taste buds - cappuccino. I wasn't sure exactly what to do with them in terms of incorporating it into a recipe, so I went with an idea I thought of from the beginning, which was to coat slice and bake cookies in crushed Jordan almonds.

First, I'll talk a little about the almonds themselves. Most Jordan almonds I've eaten have rock hard sugar shells -- I almost feel like I'm going to lose a few teeth by the time I've eaten a few! Oh Nuts' almonds, though, have a crisp shell that gives way easily, leading into a soft coated almond. The coffee flavor is light and flavorful. I could easily have eaten the entire 16 ounce bag in one sitting if I felt so inclined.

Back to the recipe. I attempted to crush the almonds in a food processor, but it didn't work out as well as I thought. They may not have been rock hard, true, though the the almonds were hard enough that I encountered difficulty getting them to crush evenly. I ended up with mostly powder and a few chunks of almonds. I pressed the coating into the softened chocolate butter cookie log, and by this time I knew that the taste of the crushed almonds wasn't going to stand out very well. Looking back on it, I should have mixed some of the powder and chunks in with the cookie dough since I wasn't able to get enough smaller pieces to press into the log.

The cookies certainly look pretty, with a nice contrast between the white edging and dark brown center. As I suspected, however, the Jordan almonds didn't really shine. You could taste the crunch, but the flavor was extremely faint. I'm disappointed in this attempt, honestly. At least I still have half a bag of cappuccino almonds remaining to console myself with.