Sweet sweet Friday: Double Choc Almond Cookies

One of my colleagues is forever sending me email links to recipes or food pictures, prefaced by the line "if you loved us, you'd make us these". On Tuesday she sent me a link to this biscuit version of a turducken, which gave me the idea for these double chocolate, double almond delights. They look like ordinary chunky chocolate chip cookies from the outside, but there's a scorched almond hidden inside. They are heavenly. Greer, if they actually make it out of the house this morning, you're going to LOVE them...

Double chocolate and almond cookies
I've got a feeling scorched almonds are just an Antipodean thing - they're basically roasted whole almonds enrobed in chocolate - so if you can't get them then I suggest making a sandwich with two squares of dark chocolate and an almond, then wrapping the cookie dough around it. It's still good, trust me. If you want to try making your own scorched almonds, check out this recipe.
This is my entry for May's We Should Cocoa, hosted by Laura of How To Cook Good Food fame, in which almonds - scorched or otherwise - are the special guest ingredient.

125g softened butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
around 3/4 cup toasted almonds, roughly chopped
around 3/4 cup dark chocolate, roughly chopped
15-20 scorched almonds (or the equivalent amount of dark chocolate and almonds as suggested above)

Preheat the oven to 180C and lightly grease an oven tray.
Cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy, then add the egg and vanilla and beat well. Stir in the flour, then add the chopped nuts and chocolate. Mix well. Take generous teaspoon-sized heaps of the mixture and roll into balls. Top one ball with a scorched almond, then stick another ball on top. Press together and roll between your hands so the scorched almond is completely enclosed.
Place on the tray - allow at least an inch between each one for spreading. Bake for 15-17 minutes, until golden. Cool on a rack and store in an airtight tin.
If you eat these five minutes out of the oven, the middle is molten. I suspect you could recreate this with a microwave if you're eating them cold, but they're pretty good either way.

Have a sweet, sweet weekend, everyone. See you next week x