Maintaining the white / yolk balance

I made macaroons for a favorite aunt:



(They're more attractive than what the bad photo shows)

I recently got a shipment of food from a local-ish farm. Their egg yolks are gorgeous, firm, and richly golden. I couldn't waste them, and didn't want to freeze them. As much as I love Hollandaise sauce, I am going to be alone over the next few days (yes. for real. amazing!) and would have to make a double batch to use all the yolks. I don't even think I could manage to eat that much Hollandaise sauce, and it's best fresh.

So, I used the handy interwebs search engines, and found this recipe for egg yolk cookies.

I didn't have orange or lemon extract. My mother in law makes spice cookies with cardamom and orange juice, and it's a tasty combination. I substituted a few things, added some turbinado sugar to the top, and came up with a sinfully rich, scrumptious cookie.

Cardamom egg yolk cookies:



Ingredients
• 1 cup butter (or shortening for cookies that won't spread quite as much)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 6 egg yolks (or 3 whole eggs)
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
• 1/2 teaspoon orange extract
Directions
1. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.
2. Separately, beat egg yolks and add extracts.
3. Add beaten egg yolk mixture to creamed butter and sugar.
4. Blend well.
5. In a separate bowl, whisk together dry ingredients (flour, baking soda and cream of tartar).
6. Add dry ingredients to creamed butter, sugar and egg mixture, mixing until well blended.
7. Form into balls about the size of a walnut.
8. Roll balls in sugar, place on greased cookie sheet or parchment lined cookie sheet, and slightly flatten.
9. Bake at 350 degrees F for 8 to 10 minutes, depending on desired softness/crispness.

My adaptation: omit lemon and orange extract. Add 1 teaspoon almond extract, 1 teaspoon dried orange peel to egg yolks in step 2, and 1 teaspoon of cardamom to the dry ingredients in step 5. In step 8, sprinkle each cookie with turbinado sugar, and then gently press the sugar into the flattened cookie.

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Next time, I will be making Avgolemono.