Apricot and almond cookies

I used this apricot and nut recipe as a base for these golden cookies.  They are crisp, light and fluffy with a complex sweet flavour and small nuggets of chewy apricot.  I have iced some with a mixture of icing sugar and Amaretto liqueur.  Makes about 28 six cm cookies.

You can make the dough and keep it in the fridge for a while, or in the freezer and slice and bake as needed.

Fan oven 175C (after mixing and chilling)
Four baking sheets lined with parchment paper, or do two at a time.

Ingredients
50g almonds, slivered and toasted
25g pine kernels (or more almonds), toasted.
200g ready to eat dried apricots (partially rehydrated), chopped
100g butter, soft
100g sugar
200g self raising flour (40& urid, 40%tapioca, 20% cornmeal)

Toast the nuts and pine kernels lightly in the oven or a dry pan.  Don't put them in at the same time as the pine kernels will burn before the almonds change colour.
Mix butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Stir in egg
Stir in flour
Stir in fruit and nuts

Roll into a log on clingfilm, wrap and chill in the fridge for a couple of hours.  You can just dollop the dough onto the baking sheets which will give a less regularly shaped cookie.

Bake for 12-15 minutes until browning. Take care not to let them burn - the fruit at the edges has a tendency to go black before the rest is golden.

Cool on a rack.

If you want to ice them take two tablespoons of icing sugar and three or four teaspoons of amaretto, mix together until you have a sloppy icing.  Drizzle over cooled cookies and leave to set.