Nicky's Sand Tart Cookies

By Caroline Reznicek
@Mysstyblue

As a child, we always made a 4 hour drive to spend the Christmas week at Grand Mother Nicky's house. She always had wonderful things baked for us kids and the thing I looked forward to sinking my teeth into the most was her sand tarts. They were so thin and delicious that I know I could have eaten the whole huge cookie tin all by myself. After Nicky passed away in 1976, I looked through some of the cook books that my mother had been given from her, but no sand tart recipe! Years later I was reminiscing with a cousin and she happened to have that particular recipe. So here it is. ENJOY!

Rating:

★★★★★ 3 votes

Comments:

10 Comments

Serves:

makes about 80 cookies

Prep:

3 Hr 30 Min

Cook:

5 Min

Method:

Bake

Blue Ribbon Recipe

Notes from the Test Kitchen:
A really tasty, light cookie! With a delicate lemon flavor these are both refreshing and addictive.

Ingredients

1 1/4 c: sugar sifted
3/4 c: real butter
1: egg
1: egg yolk
1 tsp: vanilla
1 tsp: lemon zest (grated lemon rind)
3 c: bread flour sifted
1/4 tsp: salt (if butter is unsalted)
1: egg white
1/2 c: almonds, split and blanched

How to Make Nicky's Sand Tart Cookies

Step-by-Step

1Beat butter until soft and gradually add the sugar until all is creamy.
2Then beat in one at a time, the egg, the egg yolk, the vanilla and the lemon zest.
3Sift flour and salt (if necessary) together and gradually add into the butter mixture until the ingredients are well blended.
4Chill the dough for several hours.
5When chilled, roll the dough until it is very thin. Cut it into inch and a half rounds or any desired shape and place on greased cookie sheet or parchment paper.
6Brush tops with egg white.
7Sprinkle them generously with sugar, and garnish them with the blanched split almonds.
8Bake them at 350F for about 5 minutes or until the edges begin to turn slightly brown. Remove from heat immediately as they can burn quickly.
9HINT: I am not an accomplished baker, and usually would tear the thinly rolled dough getting the cookies to the parchment paper. I found that I could roll the dough out on the parchment, then transfer whole thing to my cookie sheet, cut my cookies out in neat rows and remove the excess dough from around them, then egg, sprinkle, garnish, and bake.