Finally, I also prepared the Desert Rose Cookies! I made the most classic and best-known version of this dessert with almond flour, butter, and eggs. I absolutely did not want to change anything from the Desert Rose recipe. This way, I can start from here with variations of this same recipe, but at least we will all know which basic preparation to start from!
I’ve already explained a couple of times about my difficulty, fortunately now overcome, in preparing cookies or similar. Over the years, I’ve understood that there were two main reasons: the first was my lack of skill in working the dough. I’m not very skilled even today, but I’m getting a little better, and then I don’t like getting my hands too dirty with sticky and buttery doughs. The second was the oven: I had a very old oven about 24 years old that, among the “various ailments of age“, had a resistance that worked poorly and poor temperature control.
Therefore, if you knead poorly and bake worse, you can only expect a disaster. So today I try to knead in the best way I can and have finally changed the oven. Surely you have also noticed from the video recipes on Le Ricette di Bea’s YouTube Channel, since it is the central character of the kitchen you all love!
In fact, I started the cookie preparation throughout the year, from Halloween cookies to those for Christmas, snack cookies with apple and cinnamon or with hazelnut cream, with buckwheat. In short, I’m getting familiar with shortcrust pastry. So much so that on the blog you can also find the Collection The World of Shortcrust Pastry from the basic recipe to cookies and tarts that you can read and save.
Here below I’ll leave you some of the Most Read Recipes that you will find in the shortcrust pastry collection. Each link is clickable and will take you directly to the recipe you’ve chosen to read.
I’ll be waiting for you every morning in the group and on the Facebook fan page of Le Ricette di Bea with the Recipe of the Day!
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very cheap
- Rest time: 30 Minutes
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 30 Pieces
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons, Christmas
- Energy 116.44 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 11.50 (g) of which sugars 5.73 (g)
- Proteins 1.73 (g)
- Fat 7.25 (g) of which saturated 3.40 (g)of which unsaturated 1.94 (g)
- Fibers 0.61 (g)
- Sodium 36.41 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 30 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 for about 30 Desert Roses Recipe
- 7 oz corn flakes (2.5 oz for the dough and 4.5 oz for decoration)
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1.5 cups almond flour
- 0.8 cup butter (at room temperature)
- 0.75 cup sugar (white)
- 2 eggs (at room temperature)
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- 1 pinch salt
Optional use of powdered sugar for the final decoration which you know I don’t love much.
Tools for preparing sweet Desert Roses
- 1 Bowl
- Spatula
- 2 Small bowls
- 1 Hand whisk
- 1 Scale
- 1 Oven
- 1 Refrigerator
- 1 Plastic wrap
- 1 Parchment paper
- 1 Sieve
Steps of the Desert Rose Recipe
Let’s start by taking the butter from the refrigerator and letting it rest on the kitchen counter at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. The butter will then be softer and easier to work with both the spatula and the hand whisk. After this waiting time we can start the preparation of the homemade Desert Rose Cookies.
Take a bowl with nice high edges, the spatula, or the rubber spatula, the softened butter, and place it on a work surface. Weigh the flours, the all-purpose flour, and the almond flour, placing everything needed close to us.
Work the butter with the spatula with the amount of white sugar. Then break the two eggs at room temperature and add them to the mixture. At this point, you can continue working the ingredients with the spatula or switch to the hand whisk, which I think is the idea to proceed quickly with the preparation of the dough for the Desert Roses.
We then add a pinch of salt to the butter with the eggs. Using a spoon and a sieve, we start adding the two flours, sifting them directly into the bowl. Do not add the flours all at once, try to sift them, then knead with the whisk and then add more spoonfuls of flour. Now it’s time for the amount of baking powder, and finally, we will have the entire dough ready in front of us. Only the amount of corn flakes is missing, which we will incorporate with the spatula into the rest of the mixture.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it directly in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
After this waiting time, we can proceed with the preparation of Desert Rose Cookies. Turn on the oven in static mode. Take a large baking sheet and place a sheet of parchment paper on the bottom.
Place a bowl with water on the work surface that we will use to moisten our hands as we take the Desert Rose dough from the bowl. In another bowl, arrange the corn flakes petals. Only when we have prepared everything needed can we take the bowl with the dough from the refrigerator.
Take small portions of dough after moistening both hands, pass them in the bowl with the corn flakes, trying to apply some pressure to make them adhere to the mixture. Make round balls because these almond flour and corn flakes cookies tend to flatten during cooking, so if they are not nice round balls, you will end up with not very inviting discs.
Gradually place them on the baking sheet and bake the Desert Roses for about 15 minutes with the oven at 355°F in static mode.
Between batches, put the bowl with the remaining mixture back in the refrigerator each time. This will keep the dough at the right temperature for optimal handling. Proceed with the baking of the corn flakes Desert Rose Cookies until all the mixture is used up.
I tried to do just one batch with two pans, but I wasn’t satisfied, so try to avoid doing it. The result of the first pan, placed at the top of the oven, was well-baked and golden Desert Roses, while the second pan, placed more or less in the middle of the oven, was less cooked and softer, therefore, less crunchy, obviously. For this reason, I advise taking the right time for the preparation, rest, and related baking of these cookies.
I just have to wish you a good appetite and remind you that I’ll be waiting for you every day in my cooking blog with my easy, quick, and delicious recipes as we like them!
Storage
We can store the Desert Rose Cookies in a tin container, the classic one grandma used for cookies, or in a cake stand as I did. They stayed crispy and delicious for three days just like freshly baked. Of course, I didn’t dust them with powdered sugar to prevent it from being absorbed and losing the wow effect these cookies should have.
