Walnut cookies

Name: Walnut cookies
Yield: 30
Ingredients: 110 g walnuts; 240 g flour; 180 g caster sugar; 200 ml butter and rapeseed oil; 1 tbsp lemon juice

These humble but flavourful walnut cookies are perfect for the dessert table at your next gathering. Or keep them in the pantry for when a friend or loved one pops over for a quick cup of coffee or tea.

Ingredients

Walnut cookies

Walnuts	110 g
Flour	240 g
Caster sugar	180 g
Butter and rapeseed oil	200 ml
Lemon juice	1 tbsp

Instructions

Chop the nuts. Mix the nuts, flour, sugar, butter and rapeseed oil and lemon juice. Work quickly into a dough and form into two rolls. Leave in the fridge for about one hour.
Set the oven to 200°C. Divide the dough into pieces and shape them into small balls. Place on baking sheets with baking paper.
Bake in the middle of the oven for 10-12 minutes. Leave to cool.

Enjoy!

Walnut cookies

How do you keep walnuts from sinking in cakes and biscuits?

When baking cakes or biscuits containing nuts or dried fruits it can happen that the nuts and fruits sink to the bottom of the pan. This leaves your pastry soggier than desired, with nuts and fruits all in one layer instead of evenly spread throughout the cake. Nuts and dried fruits are heavier than the batter, causing them to sink. To avoid this, simply toss the nuts or fruits with flour before folding them last into your batter. The flour helps keep the nuts suspended in the batter for a perfectly even result.

Why is my walnut cake or biscuit crumbly?

When a cake or a sheet of cookies or biscuits comes out dry and crumbly, something probably went wrong when making the batter. Too much flour is a not uncommon reason for crumbly cake. When using measuring cups, avoid packing the flour too hard, as this will increase the amount of flour in the cake and turn it dry. Similarly, you may have added too little liquid to the batter by accident. Another mistake to avoid is overmixing the batter. Mixing your biscuit dough too vigorously will develop the gluten in the flour, making your biscuits tough, dry, and crumbly.

Do walnuts burn on top of cakes and biscuits?

Because walnuts have a high oil content, they tend to toast and burn if exposed too long in the oven. Make sure to use raw walnuts when baking, avoiding already toasted nuts. Before baking your cookies, you can press down visible pieces of walnut into the batter to avoid charred bits of nuts. If you notice that nuts are blackening, simply move the baking sheet to a lower position in the oven.

Should walnuts be toasted before baking?

Toasted walnuts are a treat in themselves. However, when you bake with walnuts, the nuts should be raw when going in the oven. The nuts will cook inside the cookies while they bake and develop their characteristic, deep and buttery flavour.

Why do walnuts turn black in baking?

Walnuts toast and blacken in the oven faster than other nuts. This is because walnuts contain more oil than, for example, almonds and hazelnuts. To ensure that your walnuts don’t blacken, keep them submerged in the batter or dough and make sure that they don’t get too close to the heating element. If the walnuts are used as topping on a cake, you can add them during the last five minutes of baking to get a nice toasted flavour without charring.