Well, hello there! I can’t tell you how glad I am to be back here with you, sharing some more sweets and recipes and hearing about your baking adventures too.
I don’t know about you, but the oncoming winter and holiday season has put me in the mood to bake and create. As a result, I’ve got a new, buttery, nutty-flavored cutout cookie recipe for you, Almond Hazelnut Sugar Cookies.
Perfectly paired with royal icing, it’s my new favorite. The classic sugar cookie with a twist, and it holds its shape for the cookie decorating canvas.
I’m sure it helped contribute to the wintry themed cookies I’m sharing today – I’m loving my new sweater from Ricki’s! Anyone who knows me well knows I love clothes, so I was happy to combine two of my favorite things in one place.
As a lovely little bonus for my Canadian friends (I’m sorry to my international sweet friends!), I’m hosting an Instagram giveaway for a $50 dollar gift card from Ricki’s! To enter, follow Ricki’s on Instagram @rickisfashion, and leave me a comment on Instagram (here) letting me know you’ve done that. Tag a friend in another comment on Instagram for another entry. (Giveaway begins 9:00 am EST Thursday, November 23rd, 2017 and goes until Friday, December 1st, 2017). Hope that’s as clear as mud! Let me know if you have any questions in the comment section below, and happy baking and shopping!
Cookie Decorating Tips, Tools & Recipes
Below are all the recipes, decorating tips and tools you’ll need to make these cookies. I’ve shared some of my basic cookie decorating tutorials and flooding and piping lines, but please let me know in the comment section if you have more specific questions about these cookies.
Royal Icing
You can find my favorite royal icing recipe here. The consistency of icing is key for easy decorating. Click here to see a YouTube video on finding the right icing thickness.
Decorating Items
What you’ll need (These are affiliate links):
- Piping Tips – PME #1, PME #1.5 , PME #2, PME #3
- Piping Bags
- Couplers
- Gel paste colors
- Scribe Tool or Toothpicks
Decorating Steps
This video on outlining and flooding is a good place to start if you’re new to decorating cookies with royal icing. These cookie decorating basics YouTube videos may also be helpful to get you started.
For piping lines, you’ll need thick icing. If you dip a spoon into the icing and pull straight upwards and lift the spoon away, the icing should form a stiff peak. If you need some tips on piping lines, here’s a video sharing my tips:
{Video} How to Pipe Straight Lines with Royal Icing
Click here if you can’t see the video.
Short Video of these I made on Instagram:
Thanks to C.R. Gibson for the cookie design inspiration! The polar bear and color scheme are from a set of holiday stickers made by them.
Happy baking and decorating!
xo,
Marian
Almond Hazelnut Sugar Cookie Recipe
Almond Hazelnut Sugar Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup hazelnut flour or hazelnut meal
- 1 tsp salt
Instructions
- Cream the butter and sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer on low to medium speed. (Use the paddle attachment). Mix until thoroughly incorporated - for about one minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a plastic spatula and mix again for a few seconds more. Over mixing the butter and sugar in this step will cause too much air to be incorporated into the dough. If you'd like a light and fluffy cookie, that's ideal, however the dough will spread more during baking; not ideal if you'd like the cookie to hold its shape.
- Add eggs slowly and mix. Scrape down the bowl with your spatula at least once and mix again.
- Add almond extract. Stir to incorporate.
- Place your dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk together. (All purpose flour, hazelnut flour and salt).
- Add all of the flour mixture to the bowl. Place a large tea towel or two small tea towels between the edge of the bowl and the electric mixer so that the flour won't escape. Mix on low speed for 30 seconds. Remove the tea towels and observe the dough mixing; when it clumps around the paddle attachment it's ready. It's also important at this stage not to over mix the dough (the glutens in the flour develop and the dough can become tough).
- Roll the dough out between 2 large pieces of parchment paper. Place on a baking sheet and into the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour.
- Roll out the dough further if you need to, and cut out cookie shapes. Place on parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Re-roll scraps and repeat.
- Put cookie dough shapes back into the fridge for 10 minutes to 1 hour to chill again. They will then hold their shape better when baked.
- Preheat your oven to 350°F or 176°C.
- Bake cookies for 8-12 minutes or until the edges become golden brown. The baking time will depend on the size of your cookie.
- Let cookies cool to room temperature and decorate!
Notes
Tips on stopping cookies from spreading during baking.
My giiiirl is back 😀
Thank you for your beautiful creations, your skills that you share with the world.
I cherish you to the moon and back.
Oh and good luck to everyone!
Thank you Niner! I cherish you to the moon and back too!
Hi Marian, I love it, you are back!
Stunning how you decorated your cookies! Very helpful hints, how to create and bake the best looking cookies! Beautiful work again!
ML
Thank you Maria Theresia! I appreciate your comments! xo
Hi Marion
I so enjoy your tutorials! I no longer have the B&B, we moved across the street to a smaller old house, so, more time for cookies! Nice to spend some time with you again. Oh, and the tutorial is great, a refresher for me. I’ll try your new recipe.I should be able to get the hazelnut flour at Bulk Barn, eh? 😉
Hi Esther,
Good to “see” you again! Definitely a change, no more B&B!:) Glad you have more time for cookies! It really is nice to see you here, although we’ve never even met in person.
Yes, you can buy it at Goodness Me (a health food store, not sure if it’s in your area), a bulk food store, or at your local grocery store – you’d have to ask the bakery employees if they have some you could buy… Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t).
Happy baking!
p.s. You can also make it yourself if you like… just buy the hazelnuts without the shell and grind them up (I have a blendtec blender… it does help to have a nice blender).
So beautiful!!
Thank you so much Dafne!
Amazing designs and So Beautiful cookies! and I love the fact that you are back!! I was hoping to see a video on the music notes cookies….
Hi Roshini,
Thanks for commenting! I appreciate you! I just posted a short video on Instagram and will try and embed it here now. Happy baking!
Great tutorial!!!!
And such a good twist to regular sugar cookies!!! I will be making this tomorrow but haven’t purchased the ingredients yet.. If I don’t find hazelnut flour, can I use almond flour/meal instead?
Thanks a lot, sweetie!!
Hi Mae,
Absolutely! Sorry for the delayed response, I missed your comment! Happy decorating! xo
Good morning Marian. Can I use almond flour instead of the hazelnut? I have a big new bag of almond flour that I need to use.
Thank You
Mariceli
Hello Marian, I made this recipe last night, delicious. They really spread, I had to make the hazelnut meal out of hazelnuts,I sifted and strained the hazelnuts really good. I put the cut outs in the freezer for 10 minutes. What do you think I did wrong.
Hi Carol,
I’m so glad they were delicious! Here are my top 8 tips for preventing spreading:
https://sweetopia.net/2011/04/top-8-tips-on-preventing-cookies-from-spreading/
Hope that helps! xo
Such beautiful cookies, Marian. I’m sure they are yummy too 🙂
Beautiful as always, dear Marion! So good to see you back. Happy holidays and all best to you and yours for a healthy and peaceful 2018. ❤️✨
Thanks Mia! All the best to you and yours too! xo
Hi Marian,
your cookies are lovely! I was wondering how you did the snow bear. It’s very pretty. How did you give the 3D effect of the face, legs and tail? Thank you 🙂
Thank you Daniela! I did the bottom layer of the polar bear first, and once the icing had set (about 15 mins), I piped the tail, face and 2nd set of legs. The icing is a 10 second consistency. If you like you can find a video on how to find that consistency here;
https://sweetopia.net/2011/02/video-royal-icing-consistency-made-easy-the-10-second-rule/
Hi Marian!
I absolutely adore your decorating skills and you sugar cookie recipe is amazing. I am curious about this recipe, can these almond hazelnut cookies be made in advance and frozen then thawed prior to decirating? I’m concerned the nut may make the cookies texture change after freezing.
Hi. Is there a tutorial of the polar bear?
Hi Tamara,
No, there isn’t, but I can explain how I made him. He’s a royal icing transfer that I let dry and then adhered to the cookie base with a few dabs of royal icing. Here is a tutorial on how to do a royal icing transfer:
https://sweetopia.net/2014/09/lettered-cookies-royal-icing-transfers/
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwbqlqZ9Gb4
and
https://sweetopia.net/2009/12/how-to-do-royal-icing-flood-work-or-runouts/
Hope that helps!
I am very confused on how these are gluten free as 4 cups of all purpose flour is listed as an ingredient? Do you use some sort of gluten free substitute you could share? Thanks!
My apologies! I’m assuming you saw this on social media yesterday… I think I was sleepy because I meant to share this post; https://sweetopia.net/2020/05/flourless-almond-sugar-cut-out-cookie-recipe/
You could substitute with gf flour too. Hope that helps!
Hi! I was wondering how you make these gluten free? Are you just subbing a cup for cup gf flour?
My apologies! I’m assuming you saw this on social media yesterday… I think I was sleepy because I meant to share this post; https://sweetopia.net/2020/05/flourless-almond-sugar-cut-out-cookie-recipe/
You could substitute with gf flour too. Hope that helps!