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• Lard makes this cookie. It has larger fat crystals than butter and no water at all, so it shortens more aggressively and the crumb collapses rather than crumbles. Shortening is the closest substitute; butter gives a good cookie that is not this one. See baking fats and Shortening.
• Almond extract, not ground almonds, is the flavour. Chinese bakeries use the extract heavily — a full two teaspoons here. See Almond extract.
• Egg wash the tops for the glossy, deep-gold finish; the crack comes from pressing the almond in hard enough to split the surface.
• Do not overwork. Mix only until the dough coheres. Worked dough bakes dense and loses the shatter.

Makes about 24.

• 225 g lard, or shortening
• 150 g granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp almond extract
• 300 g all-purpose flour
• 60 g ground almonds
• 5 g baking soda
• 3 g baking powder
• 3 g fine salt
• 24 whole blanched almonds
• 1 egg yolk beaten with 1 tsp water, to glaze

Beat the lard and sugar for two minutes, then the egg and almond extract.

Fold in the flour, ground almonds, soda, powder and salt until it just comes together. The dough is soft and slightly greasy.

Roll 25 g balls, flatten to 1 cm, and press a whole almond firmly into the centre of each so the edges crack.

Brush with the yolk glaze. Bake 175 °C / 350 °F for 15–18 minutes, until deep gold.

Cool completely on the tray. They are very fragile until cold.

• The crack is the tell. A smooth, uncracked cookie was pressed too gently or the dough was too wet.
• Some Hong Kong bakeries add a spoonful of custard powder for colour and a faint vanilla note.
• Keeps three weeks in a tin, and this is one of the few cookies that is genuinely as good on day fourteen as on day one.

Method and theory: Cookie recipes · cookies · Almonds · baking fats

Nearby: fortune cookies · amaretti · nankhatai