The Cookies I Cannot Resist

I do not have a sweet tooth, I have a butter tooth. And a salt tooth. And a brown sugar combined with butter and salt tooth, but not a sweet tooth by itself. I can take or leave most desserts. A package of cookies can remain untouched in our pantry for months. (Unless Kyle knows it's there or Lily can reach it, in which case it is gone before light can travel across the room).

But there is one cookie I cannot resist. I am powerless against the lace cookie. It's no mystery why I love these cookies so- they have more butter in them than our corner store's refrigerated section. They are sweet and rich, carmely and crisp, and have just enough salt to make that tooth happy too. A Costco-sized tin of Lacey's has little to no chance of lasting through the weekend.

Imagine my delight when I realized you can make these bad boys at home. I shopped around for recipes and ended up with a combination of the recipes I read. I had a couple of criteria: I didn't want to have to go to the store- I wanted to use ingredients I already had, including a bag of mandarin oranges that we are unlikely to eat in the next couple of days (we have been eating so many lately that we're all kind of over them). It seems like a miracle at first glance that you could possibly have all the ingredients for such a delicious cookie on hand, but on second thought-- not such a biggie when you realize that these crispy delights only have 6 ingredients, 4 of which are flour, sugar, butter and salt. Love. that.

I also wanted something that could be dressed up cute enough to bring for end-of-year treats for all the people who have helped me at BSF this year, and adding a decorative drizzle of dark chocolate over the top does the trick. Plus it gives me an excuse to enjoy one of my most favorite flavor combinations ever, orange and chocolate. What's better, these cookies contain a bunch of almonds so along with all of the butter, there's also a generous dose of the good fat. Add that to the orange zest and it's a veritable granola bar. Well played, if I do say so myself.

Orange-scented Lace Cookies
2 1/2 sticks of butter
3 c. finely chopped almonds (I food processored them)
1 1/2 c. sugar
2 T flour
2 t. orange zest
1 t. salt
2 eggs, beaten

Chop the almonds in a food processor. Add the sugar, flour, orange zest and salt. Meanwhile, melt butter and add to dry ingredients. Add beaten eggs and combine. Put batter in a squeeze bottle to drop even amounts, about the size of a half dollar, on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake at 325 for about 8 minutes, or until light golden brown. Melt your favorite chocolate and drizzle onto cooled cookies. You can also place chocolate chips on the cookies as soon as they come out of the oven and make sandwiches out of them.

Caution: don't make these when anyone's home or you will have none to give away.