Ingredients to make about 20-22 little round biscuits.
300g. plain flour, sifted
250g. soft, unsalted butter, in small pieces
1 egg yolk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
zest of 1 unwaxed lemon, plus a little of the lemon juice
150g. icing sugar
200g. pistacchio nuts of pecan nuts, finely chopped (optional)
Method
1. Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees C. Butter and line 2 baking sheets.
2. Using a food processer with mixing blades, mix together the soft butter and the plain flour, the egg yolk, the vanilla and the lemon zest. You will get quite a dense dough. If you find the mix too dry, just add a little of the lemon juice to bind it together.
3. As soon as the dough is formed, stop mixing. Spread the icing sugar on a small preparation tray. Take small pieces of the dough with clean hands and roll a ball to the size of a large cherry. Roll the round ball of dough into the sugar. Place the ball onto the baking tray, then press down lightly with two fingers to “heel” the ball onto the tray so that it does roll around. If you want to include chopped nuts, take a small amount of the dough, open it up with your fingers, insert the chopped nuts in the middle, then close the dough up. Roll tightly, and then sprinkle a few chopped nuts on top. Press the nuts into the top of the rolled dough.
4. Repeat the same process until all the dough is used up. With any extra icing sugar just sprinkle it all over the dough balls, so that they are completely covered with more icing sugar.
5. Bake in the pre-heated oven just for 12-15 minutes. The biscuits will still be fairly pale, they should not go brown. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.
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