Sbrisolona cookies with ice cream and rhubarb

Ingredients

For the cookies:
Makes approximately 14-16 cookies

80g plain flour
80g polenta
50g blanched almonds + 16 whole almonds to garnish
70g sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp. vanilla essence
1 egg yolk
80g butter, cold, diced

For the rhubarb:
1 large bunch rhubarb
200g sugar
Zest + Juice of 1 orange

Serve with:
Vanilla bean ice cream or gelato

Method:

For the cookies:

Preheat your oven to 180C conventional (160C fan-forced).

In a small food processor, blend the 50g of blenched almonds until they form small crumbs. At this stage you can make the dough in the food processor if it is large enough or tip this almond crumb into another bowl to make by hand. Add in the remaining dry ingredients of flour, polenta, sugar and salt and mix or pulse to combine.

Add in the diced butter and use your fingertips to crumble it into the flour or pulse a few times in the food processor until the crumbs are about the size of peas.

Finally, add in the egg yolk and mix to combine or pulse just a couple more times to incorporate but do not overmix. It should be crumbly.  

Line 1-2 baking trays with baking paper and use a round dough cutter which is about 8cm in diameter. Alternatively, if you don’t have cutters you can use any round object which is about that size to trace a circle on the baking paper to give you your shape. I like to visually divide the dough in half so I know I need to divide each half into 8 to get the 16 cookies. Sprinkle 1/16th of the crumble into the ring mould and very gently just press together. It should not be even or flat, they should look like they will barely hold together when you remove the mould. Repeat until you have used all the cookie dough. They don’t spread much so you can place them close together on the baking tray. Place one whole peeled almond in the centre of each cookie.

Place the trays in the centre of your oven. Bake until deeply golden brown. About 30 mins. Allow to cool and serve. They can also be cooled and stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

For the rhubarb compote:

Trim the leaves and root end from the rhubarb stalk and give them a good wash. Cut into 2-3cm lengths and combine in a pot with the sugar, orange juice and zest and a pinch of salt. Simmer over low heat with a lid ajar on the pot until the rhubarb has broken down and become thick like a compote. Allow to cool completely and store, sealed in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Serve scoops of ice cream with a spoonful of the compote and a cookie or two.