Ingredients
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3 cups walnut halves, toasted and cooled (alt measure 11 oz or 310g)
4 cups confectioners' sugar (powdered sugar, alt measure 1lb or 453g)
2 ounces unsweetened cocoa powder (alt measure 1/2 cup plus 3 tbs or 60g)
1/2 teaspoon salt (table or fine grained sea salt)
4 large egg whites, room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (real, good quality)
Preparation
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Preheat oven to 320F / 160C degrees and position racks in the top and bottom third. Line three (preferably rimmed) cookie sheets with parchment paper. You could also bake in batches with fewer pans.
Make sure your nuts are cooled a bit, then coarsely chop and set aside. Sift together the confectioners sugar, cocoa powder, and salt. Stir in the walnuts, then add the egg whites and vanilla. Stir until well blended.
Use a cookies scoop for about 60 smaller uniform cookies (or spoon the batter onto the prepared cookie sheets in mounds of about 2 tablesoons each to create 18 larger cookies.) These cookies are like reverse Shrinky Dinks - they expand. For the smaller cookies, don't place more than 4 across the short side of your cookie sheet, and for the larger cookies, no more than 6 cookies per sheet. Also remember not to place the batter too close to the edge of the pan.
Bake until they puff up. The tops should get glossy, and then crack a bit. Bite size cookies will take 7-9 minutes and the large cookies 12-15 minutes depending on your oven. You may want to rotate the cookies top/bottom/front/back.
Slide the cookies still on parchment onto a cooling rack, and let them cool completely. They will keep in an airtight container for a couple of days.
Note: I noticed while making the cookies smaller, the batter dried out a bit while waiting for the batches to cook so the tops where not as glossy. Try covering the batter with a damp cloth between batches. It didn't change texture of flavor, just a bit of the appearance.
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