Almond-Raspberry and Almond-Pine Nut cookies! Same cookie and buttercream filling recipe – with different “surprises” inside for two totally different experiences. Both are utterly decadent.

Almond cookies and almond buttercream team up with raspberry pastry filling and sweet, savory pine nuts to make these extraordinary little treats! They’re delicately pretty made with embossed rolling pins, and really pop when you paint on a little luster dust for flair.

I made these with several of our embossed rolling pins. I liked the idea of pink snowflakes for the raspberry cookies and several of our pine-themed pins for the pine nut cookies!

I used our Snowflakes Large Fancy Designs, Pinecones & Cardinals, Snowflakes & Pine Trees, and Winter Animals Scene Pins. I also used our original Snowflakes Pin (top of this photo) but those didn’t end up in the main photo, to save space.

EDIT: When I baked this last week, we were almost out of stock of our newest Pine-themed pin, Snowflakes & Woodland Pine Trees. I initially left it out of this recipe post, but we were able to make more today! So here’s one more pin option for this recipe! I used some leftover dough to whip up a few and take pics quickly. 😉 Happy Baking! ~Susie the Pin Designer

Our website has all of our 200+ disk shapes, cookie press, embossed rolling pins, baking accessories plus more about our Women/Family Owned company in Colorado Springs! impressbakeware.com

All products are on our Etsy shop.

Our Amazon shop has our cookie press and disks and embossed rolling pins.

💕We make our money selling cookie press disks and embossed rolling pins! There are no annoying ads on this recipe blog. Every purchase keeps us in business.🙌 Thank you!

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Discount on our cookie press disks, cookie press, embossed rolling pins, luster dusts, cookie cutters & baking accessories. Sale December 26 – January 4, 2026, on our website and Etsy shops ONLY! (Links above) Sale excludes holiday gift sets and our recipe book.

Let’s bake! I have video below of how to roll with our embossed pins if you’re new to this!

Almond Rolled Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened (not melted) (I recommend Land O Lakes brand as I know it creams well. I have had trouble with some generic butters not creaming properly and making the dough difficult to work with.)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup honey
1 tablespoon almond extract
1 egg
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

One can of Solo Brand Raspberry Cake & Pastry Filling

Pine nuts

In a large bowl, combine flour and salt. Set aside.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter. Add the sugar and cream together very well, until it is light and fluffy. Add the honey, then the almond extract, then the egg, mixing thoroughly after each addition.

Add the flour mixture slowly, mixing on a slow speed until a workable dough forms. Make sure all of the flour is incorporated evenly. Knead it a bit by hand if needed to make sure it is uniformly smooth and mixed. Sometimes this dough can seem crumbly at first but it kneads together well. Perfect rolling dough has a clay-like, workable texture that is not too sticky or too stiff. If it feels difficult to knead, it is probably too stiff. Add a little water or extract a teaspoon at a time until you achieve a workable texture. If it is too easy to knead or is sticking to your fingers, it is probably too soft. Add flour a tablespoon at a time until it is workable like soft clay.

Divide your dough into balls a little bigger than your fist. Work with one portion at a time to keep it manageable. Cover the unused portion to keep it from drying out.

NOTE: Remember that for sandwich cookies you want to roll out half of your dough embossed for top cookies, and half plain and flat for bottom cookies. You will need about 22 plain bottom cookies and 22 patterned top cookies for 44 sandwiches.

Roll it out!

I usually recommend that you oil your regular pin with canola (or similar) oil before rolling, but I am starting to prefer using waxed paper. Start by creating a log of dough that’s about the width that you want, then flatten it out with your hands a bit. Put the waxed paper on top. OR lightly oil your pin and roll as follows:

Use a regular rolling pin (preferably one with thickness spacer rings to make a perfect thickness, picture of ours above and at bottom of post) to roll your dough on to a silicone baking mat, glass cooktop, or lightly floured surface. Roll to a 1/4” thickness, and wide enough to accommodate the embossed pin. Create a long rectangular slab of dough. The patterns on the embossed pins are designed to repeat, so you will be rolling a long rectangle of patterned dough. (These pics are from the first test bake I did – I forgot to photograph this step on the second bake when I was rolling on my blue silicone mat. 🙂 )

Oil your embossed pin with canola (or similar) oil before rolling. Make sure to get it down into ALL of the engraved areas. You can use a pastry brush but it’s best to do it with your fingers, gently squeezing the pin with your hands to get oil into the shapes, and rubbing the surface to coat. Wipe off any excess with a paper towel, making sure nothing is left pooled in the larger cuts. We want a non-stick pin not a swimming pool! If you’re new or this is confusing PLEASE watch the quick video clip below to see exactly what I mean!

Here’s how it should look when rolled. Nice deep patterns!

Place a bench scraper or similar item at the far end of the dough to prevent it from pulling up as you roll. Now roll with your embossed pin, pressing down with a steady pressure that leaves a deep impression in the dough. The designs should be as raised up on the dough as deep as they are in the pin. If the pattern is not deep enough it will disappear as the cookies bake and puff. As this dough is not cold or stiff, you do not have to press terribly hard! Just an even pressure.

Watch this quick video clip of me oiling it properly and rolling it out!

Once rolled, use a small cookie cutter to cut out shapes. Remove any excess dough around the edges. Keep your spatula/lifter flat, dust the end with a little flour, and lift the shapes, beginning by lifting one edge slightly first, then sliding the spatula/scraper under the whole shape. Transfer them to a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, spacing them at least an inch apart. The rolling pin with thickness rings, bench/dough scraper and cookie cutters I’m using here are available at our website and Etsy shops.

I used our 1 3/4″ round cookie cutter. The fluted edges make a beautiful presentation!

Tip on using the Winter Animals Scene Pin: This pin was designed to make larger scene cookies bordered by the birch trees. A customer pointed out to me that the scenes can be cut-out just like all of our other pins! Go ahead and grab any parts of the scenes you like. I focused on the animals with the pine trees to go with the “pine nut” theme of the cookies.

Bake at 400°F for 7-10 minutes, checking at 7 minutes and every minute after as cookies brown quickly. They are done when the edges are slightly brown. Cookies harden significantly the longer they bake, so bake just a few cookies first to test timing for desired doneness and hardness.

Move to a cooling rack after 5 minutes.

Again, don’t forget to roll out plain flat dough and cut shapes as needed, to make enough bottom cookies. Off to parchment paper on a cookie sheet and bake as described above.

***If you are painting the cookies, scroll down to that section and PAINT FIRST BEFORE SANDWICHING! It is much easier to handle a single-layer cookie than a full sandwich.

If you’re not painting, read on!

Sandwiches!

The sandwich filling is a buttercream so thick you can roll it out and play with it like play dough! Try not to eat it all before the sandwiches are done. 

Super Thick Almond Buttercream

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons heavy cream
1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract

Cream the butter with an electric mixer, then add the heavy cream and almond extract and mix thoroughly. Add powdered sugar a little at a time. Do not be alarmed or surprised! This mixture can be very dry and crumbly, so finish kneading by hand until a smooth clay-like dough forms. It will be much stiffer than the cookie dough. Keep kneading even if it seems very stiff, until it forms a workable ball as pictured. It will warm and soften as you work it. Add cream to an overly stiff mixture, or powdered sugar to a soft sticky mixture, as needed to get a workable clay-like consistency. It will be fun to knead, though still stiff, when it’s the right texture.

Roll it out on a clean silicone mat or surface, preferably with a spacing pin. Then cut out the shapes you need to sandwich your cookies. You can use the waxed paper technique I showed with the cookie dough on this buttercream filling.

I always use the same 1/4″ thickness spacing on my sandwich cookie fillings as I do for cookies. They’re crazy thick but oh so delicious. Use the same cookie cutter as you did for your cookies so it all matches up size-wise.

Lift them the same way you would lift cookie dough, getting under one edge first with your spatula/lifter. If needed you can use powdered sugar to keep your lifter non-stick the same way you use flour with cookie dough. As you go to put the filling on the cookie, wet the surface of the buttercream slightly with a fingertip and it will stick to the cookies. I keep a small cup of warm water there as I work.

For these “Secret filling” cookies you need a couple of extra steps.

Gather your top and bottom cookies and your buttercream middles. Use a knife to cut out the center of the icing circle. Place that ring on top of the bottom cookie. Now fill it with raspberry pastry filling or pine nuts! You can also simply push the pine nuts randomly scattered into the buttercream, but hold onto the edges of the circle because it will spread as the nuts push in.

NOTE: The smaller pink snowflake on the right was made with our original Snowflakes embossed Rolling Pin. The larger one on the left is made with the new Snowflakes Large Fancy Designs Embossed Rolling Pin.

Place the top cookie on top and you’re done! Remember to slightly wet the buttercream so it sticks.

Painting!

I know this looks complicated but it’s really quite simple.

Luster dust is what makes this beautiful presentation possible. I use it so often in my cookie press posts that in 2022 we started selling it on our website and Etsy shop! We chose to partner with an American company, Bakell, that makes dusts here in the USA. They make gorgeous dusts that are silky, vibrant, and a joy to work with. Their 4 gram jars last and last. A little goes a long way!

To get this look you’re going to paint with edible luster dust mixed with clear alcohol. You could alternatively use any clear extract. Vodka is definitely the best choice and makes the smoothest, fastest-drying paint! The taste disappears. As you experiment, you’ll get the hang of mixing dust and liquid. We also sell a wonderful decorating brush set.

My technique (you may come up with a better one) is to put a small amount of vodka in a little dish or cup, then use a larger brush (always use food safe brushes) to drip the liquid a little at a time next to your piles of dust. I use a big plate and place small dust piles around it, then add extract a little at a time- it doesn’t take much! It also dries out quickly so you’ll find yourself adding more. I save that big brush and keep it clean so I’m always re-dipping it in a clean liquid.

NOTE: Always make sure you are using EDIBLE dusts! Some luster/pearl/glitter dusts on the market are “non-toxic” but that does not mean they are edible. Plenty of brands have actual food ingredients and are marked “edible”. ONLY use those for safety’s sake!

Start adding vodka to the dust and swirl it around until it forms a paint. Not too thick, not too runny or transparent. You want the color to show up but not be gloppy. So start painting and experiment! It takes a little practice to not get it too heavy or too light. Be patient and take a few minutes to see how runny or thick your “paint” needs to be.

I didn’t do anything particularly fancy or surprising with these cookies. I followed the raised patterns on the cookies themselves and treated them like a coloring book. I simply painted the tops of the shapes single colors. They are raised enough that it’s easy to not make mistakes. I mixed black and orange to make brown. Experiment and get creative! Mix in a little white to any color you want lighter or more opaque.

Painting cookies is relaxing and fun, like doing a coloring book, and the added bonus is you can eat this art when you’re done with it! LOL

Now go back to the sandwiching section and get them all assembled!

I hope you all enjoy these cookies as much as we did! I am thrilled with how they turned out. Let me know if you add them to your holiday dessert tables! 😊

🙏We have a request💕 If you’re enjoying our recipes, *EVERY DISK & PIN PURCHASED helps us stay in business* & supports our families! Impress is a women/family-owned USA small business in Colorado. We design, make, & sell over 300 shapes of cookie press disks & dozens of embossed rolling pins. The recipes we share are free – we have no ads on this recipe blog – we make our money selling disks & pins. The recipes give our customers creative ideas and attract new customers!💕 THANK YOU! 💕~Susie the Disk & Pin Designer

As always, Happy Baking!

~Susie

Disk & Pin Designer/Co-Owner at Impress! Bakeware, LLC

Our website has all of our 200+ disk shapes, cookie press, embossed rolling pins, luster dusts, baking accessories plus more about our Women/Family Owned company! impressbakeware.com

All products are on our Etsy shop.

Our Amazon shop has our cookie press and disks and embossed rolling pins.

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If you’re not familiar with rolling pins with thickness rings, here’s ours: