Pine cones with fine cocoa chocolate

They look like little treasures from the winter forest - our pine cones with single-origin cocoa. The fine marzipan aroma harmonizes perfectly with the strong note of the dark single-origin cocoa chocolate, while the golden roasted almond flakes give the cookies an elegant structure and delicate crunchiness. These are cookies for the festive season that not only look wonderful, but also taste great.

Recipe for approx. 25 cookies
Preparation time: 1 hour + 20 min. baking time + 1 hour cooling time

Ingredients:

100 g soft butter or vegetable margarine
1 pinch of salt
100 g sugar
80 g marzipan paste
220 g type 405 flour
½ tsp baking powder
80 g flaked almonds
50 g Costa Rica chocolate blocks 75%
Icing sugar for decorating

Preparation:

1. Cream the butter, pinch of salt and sugar until the mixture turns white.
2. Pluck the marzipan into small pieces and gradually stir into the butter mixture.
3. Mix the flour with the baking powder and sieve through a sieve into a bowl. Then stir into the butter mixture by the spoonful until a smooth dough forms.
4. Cover the dough and keep in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
5. Roll out the dough to a thickness of approx. 1/2 cm on a floured work surface and cut out cookies using an oval or drop-shaped cutter.
6. Line a baking tray with baking paper and preheat the oven to 180 °C top/bottom heat.
7. Place the cookies on the baking trays with space between them. Carefully and patiently insert the flaked almonds into the cookies from top to bottom in a fan shape. Leave the bottom third of the cookies free.
8. Bake the cookies in the middle of the oven for approx. 10 minutes until the almonds are lightly colored.
9. Carefully place the finished pine cones on a wire rack and leave to cool.
10. Finely chop the block chocolate and melt in a saucepan over a bain-marie.
11. Carefully dip the bottom third of the cookies into the melted chocolate coating and allow to drip off. Place the cookies back on the wire rack and leave to dry for approx. 30-45 mins.

Sprinkle some powdered sugar over the finished pine cones as desired and the little works of art will look as if they have just brought fresh snow from the winter forest.