Pistachio Buttons

A while ago I pinned the following recipe and I decided that with St. Patrick's Day around the corner, now was a good time to try it.  I thought of my two boys who hate mint the whole time I was baking these.  If you lived nearby, I would have given some.  Instead, I shared them with my seminary class.  Maybe you can talk your wives into making a batch for you some day.

Pistachio Buttons

1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon almond extract

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 - 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (remember in Florida I need to increase this)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, melted

1/3 cup finely chopped pistachios

10 drops green food coloring, optional

Cream the butter and sugar.  Beat in the egg and extracts.  Combine flour, baking powder and salt and stir into the sugar mixture.  Divide in half.  Stir the chocolate into one part and the pistachios and food coloring into the other.  (Note: at this point I chilled it for just a bit.)  Then divide each into four parts.  

Pat the chocolate dough into a rectangle about 8x3".  I did this on plastic wrap and that made the next step easier.  Roll the green dough into a log.  Place on top of the chocolate dough and roll carefully to encase it.  Wrap in plastic and chill for an hour.

Heat the oven to 350°.  Slice each roll into 1/4" thick cookies.  (Mine were just a touch thicker.)  Place on the cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes.

You can see that they're quite tiny.  Normally I only fit one dozen cookies on the baking sheet, not two dozen.

They're not super sweet, so I thought about drizzling some chocolate over them, but that's an extra step and I was tired.  Maybe later.

I think these will make a nice addition to the Christmas cookie platters as well, don't you.  And because they're bite-sized, you don't feel quite so guilty eating one or two!