Desert Roses without Almond Flour, delicious cookies that are crispy on the outside thanks to the cornflakes coating and soft on the inside due to the butter-based dough.
Desert roses are indeed very tasty treats that resemble cookies but are enhanced with a special, simple-to-make coating of corn flakes. After making the classic recipe for desert roses, I decided to try this version without almond flour, suitable for people with nut allergies for whom consuming nuts could be problematic.
This recipe is very simple to prepare and requires only a few ingredients that are easily found in our kitchens. Cornflakes have become a precious ingredient in my kitchen because they give an unmatched crunch to recipes, of course, we are talking about classic cornflakes adaptable to both savory and sweet recipes like desert roses.
These little cookies are really easy to make, and you can ask the help of your children because rolling them in cornflakes before baking is a fun and hands-on operation that can engage and entertain them at the same time.
For those who love homemade cookies, I also remember other simple and quick recipes
- Cost: Economical
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 36 cookies
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Energy 99.70 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 14.87 (g) of which sugars 5.41 (g)
- Proteins 1.67 (g)
- Fat 3.99 (g) of which saturated 2.47 (g)of which unsaturated 1.43 (g)
- Fibers 0.33 (g)
- Sodium 26.60 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 25 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2/3 cup butter (softened, not melted)
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp baking powder (level)
- 1/4 cup Marsala (or Vin Santo)
- to taste orange zest
- 5 1/4 cups cornflakes
Tools
To make desert roses, no major tools are needed, but it is useful to use a stand mixer or a regular electric whisk to whip the butter.
- 1 Stand Mixer howork
Preparation
The preparation of desert roses without almond flour is simple and quick, you can prepare your snack in half an hour.
Let’s start preparing the desert roses by whipping the butter with the sugar. Soften the butter but don’t melt it (it should be like a pomade), place it in the stand mixer’s bowl with a paddle attachment, add the sugar, and mix well until it becomes a buttercream. Now, add one egg at a time, waiting for the previous one to be absorbed before adding the next.
Continue by adding the flour and then the Marsala, orange zest, and finally the level teaspoon of baking powder. If you have followed the steps correctly, you will have a dough like in the photo, soft but not liquid.
Once the dough is prepared, you can let it rest for half an hour in the refrigerator to work with it better.
I skip this resting and use a teaspoon to scoop the dough into “ball shapes”.
Drop the “ball” into a deep plate in which we previously put the cornflakes.
Roll it gently with your hands without pressing so that the dough ball gets well and abundantly covered in cornflakes.
Place the cookies on a baking tray covered with parchment paper, ensuring they are not too close to each other because they flatten a lot during baking. For this reason, I recommend pinching them slightly upwards with your fingers before baking, to make them taller rather than wider.
Bake in a preheated oven at 356°F for about 15 minutes; they should be golden brown on the surface as shown in the photo.
I needed two large baking trays and one smaller tray because a total of 36 cookies were produced, and if you make them smaller, you can easily reach 40.
As you can see from the photo, I suggest dusting them with powdered sugar once they have cooled, using just a little as it will not be absorbed by the cookie.
NOTES
Desert roses keep well for several days if stored in classic cookie containers with lids. Be generous with the cookie’s cornflake coating because the internal cookie expands quite a bit during baking.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can I add chocolate chips to the dough?
Of course, you can add chocolate chips to the dough, but I also suggest raisins as a variant.
Should the oven be static or fan-assisted?
My oven has an option specifically for baking which is fan-assisted, and I always recommend it for even baking of your sweets.
