Blueberry Chocolate Cookies

Mix flour and baking soda together and set aside. Cream butter and salt. Add food coloring and mix well. Add sugars and the cubed almond paste and blend until smooth. Add one egg and blend, and add half of the flour and mix to combine – add the remaining egg and flour. Transfer cookie dough in a pastry bowl; mix in dried blueberries. Scoop out onto a baking tray lined with silicon mat. Coat each cookie with the caramelized and crushed almonds and chill cookies. Moisturize cookies if necessary to stick nuts in. Cookie dough can be made days in advance and kept refrigerated for up to a week or frozen for weeks.

Bring water and sugar to a boil; cook for for 3 min and throw in almonds. Stir constantly on medium high heat. The sugar will begin to cristalize, continue stirring to coat each nut with sugar for about 15 minutes or until completely caramelized. Cool onto a silicone mat. Crush almonds and set aside. Store in a sealed container at room temperature. Let cookies to come to room temp before coating with crushed almonds. Moisturize cookies with water if nuts won’t stick well. Chill cookies before baking.

Top mandarins whir water and bring to boil; cook for 2 minutes. Cover and let sit over night to cool slowly. Drain, remove stems, seeds, membranes and chop. In a food processor, give a few pulses – add sugar and pectin and pulse a few more times. Transfer orange mixture into a saucepan and cook for 3 minutes; cool and keep refrigerated for up to a month. It freezes well too.

Arrange chilled cookies onto baking tray lined with a silicone mat. Gently press down cookies and bake at 350ºF (180ºC) for 10 min. Stuff cookies with blueberry jam and orange marmalade. Put cookies back in the oven for an additional 13 min. Remove from the oven and top with some broken chocolate disks and candied orange dices. Serve at room temperature. Enjoy!