Vienna Cookies - cooking recipe

Ingredients

1/2 cup almonds, blanched
4 egg yolks, hard-boiled
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup candied cherry, chopped
1/4 cup candied pineapple, chopped
1 1/2 cups sifted flour
18 blanched almonds, split into halves

Preparation

Finely chop the 1/2 cup almonds. Sieve egg yolks. Cream butter with egg yolks, sugar, lemon juice and salt until very light and fluffy. Stir in chopped almonds, cherries and pineapple. Add flour, mixing to make a soft dough. Chill dough until easy to handle.
Form the dough into 1 inch balls; place on lightly greased cooky sheet and flatten to 1/2 inch. Lightly press an almond half into each. Bake on a high rack in the oven at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Cool on wire racks. Store in an airtight container. Yield about 3 dozen cookies.
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Typically these cookies were topped with an almond half. Heating the whole almonds first makes them easier to split. Place the nuts in a shallow pan in a 300 degree oven for about 5 minutes. As soon as they are cool enough to handle split them into halves with the sharp tip of a small kitchen knife.
If nuts are not for you, a dusting of confections sugar, or a sliver of cherry also could grace the cookies top. Sometimes we did all 3 just to make an assortment.