Crystal Diamonds

I saw this recipe a couple years ago and have been meaning to try it. It's totally different than any cookie I've ever made - you start with a yeast dough, but roll it out so thin it's almost translucent, using a heavy 'dusting' of coarse sugar to roll out the dough. The sugar encrusts the dough diamonds on both sides and bakes into a delicious crispy sugar wafer. The darker you let them get in the oven, the more caramelized the sugar gets, and the better they taste! Add citrus extract or oil, like lemon or oil for an extra hint of flavor). These are delicious with coffee or tea, but would also be awesome crumbled on ice cream or used as a crunchy garnish to another dessert.

RECIPE: Crystal Diamonds
from The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion
makes about 5 dozen 2-inch cookies

INGREDIENTS:
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon whole milk
1 teaspoon lemon/orange extract or 1 drop of lemon/orange oil
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1.5 cups coarse sugar, for rolling: coarse "raw" sugar or "Demerara"
(if you don't have coarse sugar, you can use regular granulated; the cookies won't be quite as crunchy but will be just as tasty)

DIRECTIONS:
With an electric mixer, beat together the flour, milk, citrus flavor, yeast, and salt until well combined. Beat in pieces of butter one at a time, beating for 1 full minute after each piece is added. The dough will be very smooth and elastic. Remove the dough from the mixer, place it in a small bowl, cover, and refrigerate for 2 hours, or as long as overnight.

Preheat oven to 275F. Sprinkle work surface with coarse sugar .

Divide dough in half. Working with one half at a time (and keeping the other half refrigerated), roll out dough on the sugar-covered surface as thin as possible, addint additional sugar to the work surface and sprinkling it atop the dough as necessary. Halfway through the rolling process, turn the dough over and sprinkle the work surface with more sugar, so that both top and bottom surfaces end up heavily coated with sugar. The dough should be about 1/16 inch thick, almost translucent in spots.

Using a rolling pizza wheel or a sharp knife, cut the dough into diamonds. Try to cut pieces about 2.5 inches in size. They'll shrink a bit, and by the time they're finished baking, they'll be about 2 inches, a nice size for this cookie. (If you make them too large, the edges wil brown way before the middle; the goal is an evenly browned cookie.) Transfer the diamonds to ungreased, unlined baking sheets. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Bake cookies for 45-50 minutes. They should be a deep golden brown, but not burned. The closer you get to deep brown, the better they'll taste. Remove them from the oven and transfer to a rack immediately to cool, otherwise they may stick to the pan.