Saturday, February 18, 2012

Millet Cookies

I had some left over millet from my Marx Foods contest, so I decided to make some cookies. These are flaky, much like those bits of left over pie crust that you save and bake for a little treat. You do that, don't you?

The millet adds a little extra texture and a slight nuttiness to the cookies.

1 cup cooked millet
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter - one chilled, one frozen

Put the millet, flour, sugar. salt, and almond extract in the bowl of your food processor. Pulse a few times to combine.

Cut the chilled butter into about 8 pieces and add it to the food processor. Pulse until the mixture is like sand.

Cut the frozen butter into about 8 chunks and add it to the food processor. Pulse until the dough comes together in a ball. There will be random bits that aren't part of the ball, but most of it should be a cohesive dough. There should be distinct bits of butter in the dough, just like when you make pie crust.

Flour your work surface and turn out the dough form it into a disk, and wrap it in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes - longer is fine.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Flour your work surface. Roll the dough out to a thickness of about 1/4 inch, then fold in thirds, like a letter. Roll again to the same thickness and fold in thirds in the other direction. You should have something that is roughly rectangular. Roll again to a thickness of 1/4 inch. Using a pizza cutter or sharp knife cut the dough into squares about 1-2 inches across, depending on how big you want your cookies to be.

Place the squared on you prepared baking sheets. You don't need to leave a lot of room between them - they'll puff up rather than spreading sideways.

Bake at 375 degrees until the cookies begin to brown - you'll see it more on the bottom than on the top - about 15 minutes. Remove the cookies to a rack to cool completely.

For the purposes of the Marx Foods contest, we were sent sample amounts of several ingredients. (see the previous post for details.)
Yum