Non-Comic Strips, Almond Division

Many things in life are like lifting a heavy weight. This recipe is one of them. There are two truisms that come to mind whenever I know I’m about to strain every muscle in my body and possibly sustain minor to more than minor injury. Three things actually. One: Avoid injury. Two: lift with your legs. (If you learn anything from all of this, lift with your legs is as good a lesson as any.) But this recipe has nothing to do with these first two thoughts. Mostly. Number three is what concerns us here. Number three, as we all should have learned a long time ago, reads: Before you lift something heavy, know where you’re going to put it after you have it in hand. You really don’t want to be walking around going, “Where shall I place this awfully heavy object which is causing me such pain as I walk around with it in my hands looking for a place to unload the damn thing other than from where I just picked it up? Ouch.”

We are here to avoid that pain. Know what you are going to do with these almondy wonders before you launch into this recipe. Know that you are going to send a dozen to the neighbors. Know that your nieces and nephews will enjoy them without end. Know that your overweight rival in the office will gobble them down and thus be one step closer to taking six months of medical leave due to the triple bypass. Know that the two women sharing the apartment down the hall are going to be just as pleased as punch.

Do not leave these around your own premises. You may keep a half dozen for yourself and a friend. If you do not disperse these immediately you will end up looking like the Pillsbury Doughboy, a sad cross between an adorable adult infant and the guy from the old neighborhood who still lives in his grandparents’ basement, is at least 200 pounds overweight and gives off vibes similar to a bad slasher movie.

You have been warned.

½ cup unsalted butter (one stick)
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon almond extract
a wee bit of milk
½ cup sliced almonds, roughly chopped
Powdered Yet Drippy Sugar Icing

Take the butter and egg out of the refrigerator an hour before you want to make these. You have to get the ingredients in the mood. Warm them up a bit. Ease into it. None of that, “Honey, I’m home, let’s do it” shit. Room temperature ingredients. This is the French way.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Beat the crap out of the butter with an electric mixer for about thirty seconds at medium speed. If you don’t have an electric mixer, you probably already have massive forearms so I’m not going to help you out.

Toss in 1 cup of flour, all the sugar, your warmed, desirable egg, baking powder, as well as the almond extract. Hit it again with the mixer until completely integrated then toss in the rest of the flour and beat it. Really beat it.

Take this dough and toss it onto a marginally floured cutting board. Chop the dough into four equal parts. Take each one of these and roll it into a twelve inch long roll. You will feel like an idiot but just do it. Take out an ungreased cookie sheet and place the rolls on it about five inches apart. Using the karate chop edge of your hand, flatten the rolls until they’re about three inches wide.

Take out your pastry brush (I know, I know), and lightly paint the now flattened rolls with a wee bit of the milky.

Shove that cookie sheet into that 325 oven and let ‘er rip for 13 minutes, give or take sixty seconds. When you eyeball these toasted tubes, the edges should be slightly brown, like really over whitened coffee. Take them out of the oven then diagonally slice the suckers into 1 (one) inch(“) strips. Cool these babies down on a wire rack (I said, I already know). Drip the disgusting looking icing (recipe follows) all over these puppies. And then get them out of your house.

(Powdered Yet Drippy Sugar Icing - cup powdered sugar, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla, a little milk. Mix sugar, vanilla, and a tablespoon milk together. Add milk a teaspoon at a time until it looks drippingly, disgustingly perfect for slobbering over your almond non-comic strips.)

Then get them out of your house, Doughboy.
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