Easter recipe – gluten free macadamia shortbread cookies

Easter recipes all seem to contain chocolate eggs in some form or another, so we’ve decided to go buck the trend with something easy, delicious and distinctly Australian to make this Easter.

If you like sweets, you’re probably a huge fan of Easter. It’s the time of year when you can eat as much chocolate as possible with complete impunity.

It’s also a good opportunity to try your hand at making something new (and sweet) in the kitchen!

This year, rather than going for something egg-shaped or bunny-themed, we thought we’d try something different.

It’s around this time of year that macadamia nuts are being harvested in Australia, so we thought an Easter macadamia recipe would be quite appropriate.

Gluten free macadamia shortbread cookies

Here’s what you need

• ½ cup raw macadamia nuts – roughly chopped
• 150g unsalted butter – softened and chopped
• 75g icing sugar
• 150g plain white flour – we found gluten free flour works really well
• 75g corn flour
• 1 tsp crystal sea salt – Maldon salt is the best
• A few drops of vanilla extract – optional

Here’s what you do:

1. Into a large bowl, sift the icing sugar over the butter.
2. Mash and combine the sugar and butter with a wooden spoon.
3. Combine the flours and sift them over the sugared butter bit by bit, mixing as you go.
4. When the cookie dough has started to form, add the vanilla extract and mix thoroughly then add the salt. Try to keep the crystals whole as it adds a nice texture.
5. On a lightly floured surface, gently kneed the macadamias into the dough.
6. Roll the dough out between 2 sheets of baking paper until it’s about 1cm thick – or thicker if you want deeper cookies!
7. Cut out the cookies and place on a lined baking tray.
8. Sprinkle a small pinch of salt crystals on the top of each cookie and gently tap them into the surface to secure.
9. Bake at 160°C for about 10-15 minutes or until the cookies start to brown slightly.
10. Leave the cookies to cool a bit on the tray – they’ll break up if you try to move them too soon.
11. Transfer to a cooling rack and avoid eye contact. They will read your mind and take possession of your soul.

I’ve discovered that this recipe can be successfully scaled up so that you can use a whole 250g block of butter! I mean, no one likes having that useless 100g chunk of butter taking up space in their fridge, do they?

Quantities become:

• ¾ cup macadamias
• 250g butter
• 125g icing sugar
• 250g flour
• 125g corn flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 – 1½ tsp salt

The best thing about these cookies is that you can make them relevant to any celebration by swapping out the nut. Pecans for Thanksgiving, walnuts for Christmas, cashews for summer… though of course, macadamias work the best!

I’ve got a feeling that adding a few chocolate chips to this recipe would work a treat too. In fact I think I might go and test that theory out right now!

If you want more macadamia recipes, check out our party nut ideas here or our macadamia dukkha recipe here, or head over the Australian Macadamia Society’s website.

Do you have a favourite macadamia recipe? What will you be making this Easter? Tell us in the comments!

Images by Mrs Romance using an OM-D E-M5 mark II Olympus camera.