Portuguese Sand Cookies • Areias de Sintra

Directions

1. There are 2 tricks to making perfect sands, first you have to have very cold butter, second handle the dough as little as possible (so as not to dissolve the butter and not compress the cookie so after baking its very crumbly).
2. You will start by mixing the dry materials in a bowl, flour, sugar, and a pinch of salt.
3. Next, cut the cold butter into small cubes and mix in the bowl with the flour, use only your fingertips to crush the butter into the flour, or better yet, throw everything into a food processor.

4. As soon as you create a reasonably homogeneous dough (but still have bits of butter), wrap it and take it to the fridge for 30min, you do this to let the butter harden again, so when you create the little balls you don’t melt the butter completely.
5. Preheat the oven to 180ºC and prepare a baking tray lined with non-stick paper (or silicone).
6. Now you’re going to create the balls, try to make them the same size so they cook equally, whether small or big balls, don’t press the balls, this dough is naturally brittle and fragile, you want to create light and crumbly balls, so mold just enough so the ball doesn’t fall apart and put them on the tray, repeat until you have a full tray, so about 15 to 20.

7. Put the cookies in the oven for about 12 to 15 minutes (depends on the oven and the size of the balls), you want the sand cookies to be cooked but you don’t want them to be dark, take them out of the oven and while they are hot and soft, carefully roll them in a bowl with sugar, roll several times so that the sugar gets stuck on the outside, repeat for all the sand cookies and let them cool.

8. While cooling they will get more crunchy, keep them on a hermetic box so they will stay crunchy, enjoy!