NICKY'S SAND TART COOKIES

Steps:

• 1. Beat butter until soft and gradually add the sugar until all is creamy.
• 2. Then beat in one at a time, the egg, the egg yolk, the vanilla and the lemon zest.
• 3. Sift flour and salt (if necessary) together and gradually add into the butter mixture until the ingredients are well blended.
• 4. Chill the dough for several hours.
• 5. When chilled, roll the dough until it is very thin. Cut it into inch and a half rounds or any desired shape and place on greased cookie sheet or parchment paper.
• 6. Brush tops with egg white.
• 7. Sprinkle them generously with sugar, and garnish them with the blanched split almonds.
• 8. Bake them at 350F for about 5 minutes or until the edges begin to turn slightly brown. Remove from heat immediately as they can burn quickly.
• 9. HINT: I am not an accomplished baker, and usually would tear the thinly rolled dough getting the cookies to the parchment paper. I found that I could roll the dough out on the parchment, then transfer whole thing to my cookie sheet, cut my cookies out in neat rows and remove the excess dough from around them, then egg, sprinkle, garnish, and bake.