Deb's Lunch … and dinner and breakfast too

I was really looking forward to making these cookies. I made them last year for the first time, although I’d been looked at the recipe for years, since it was part of a Swiss cookies feature in the December 1994 Gourmet magazine, and I’ve been making the Biberli from that issue probably since it was published. They’re made with ground almonds, sugar, cinnamon, and egg whites – you make a meringue, scoop some if it out and save it for brushing onto the cookies, and then use the rest to bind the dough together. The recipe (this is dated 2000 in Epicurious; it’s the same as the older version from Gourmet magazine, except for the commentary) says they’re tricky, but in 2010, they went together like a dream, and I liked the little crunch the star cutter made going through the nutty dough. The only downside was I didn’t make enough of them. That’s why this year I planned to make an extra big batch, and expected to enjoy the process. Turns out the trick is measure. The recipe says, “1/4 cup egg whites (about 2 large)” and last year I must’ve measured – this year I counted; 6 whites for my big batch. I thought the dough looked a little wet … I tried rolling it a few times, and even got as far as cutting stars, which only squished when I tried to pick them up. I scraped the dough up off the counter, thinking maybe I could grind the nuts in the dough more finely in the food processor, and the dough’d be more workable – but the machine protested and it didn’t help. Scraped up again, and added more powdered sugar – still goo. Finally I added some gluten-free baking mix, and used the same stuff to flour the pastry cloth – and got them to roll just fine. I was afraid they’d be too sweet or too blah with the extra sugar and flour (albeit gluten-free) – but the little stars are just as yummy as last year – and there’s a lot of them!