GENETES
Soft cornstarch cookies that just melt in your mouth.
These popular cookies are traditionally made with corn starch and arae gluten-free. (Note that the recipes call for “corn starch”: flour made from corn. What is sold as “corn flour” is sometimes made from wheaten flour.)
Typically they are extruded from a forcing bag through a large piping nozzle with a serrated edge.
Genetes from Noreen Sousa via Carmen O’Brien
6 egg yolks
¾ cup sugar
1½ tsp baking powder
500g corn starch
250g butter
½ tsp vanilla essence
Preheat oven to 200°C.
Beat butter, sugar & vanilla essence together.
Add egg yolks and mix well.
Sift baking powder and cornflour into the mixture.
Knead with hands until well mixed.
Let it set for ½ hour. The mixture will be pretty thick.
Turn oven down to 180°C.
Push the mixture through a cookie mould with large aperture onto a tray lined with baking paper and bake for approximately 20 minutes.
Genetes from Virginia McDougall via Yolanda Guterres
220 5g soft butter
6 egg yolks
¾ cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
450 g corn starch (not cornflour)
Put all the above in a foot processor and once blended squeeze into a long tube using a forcing bag.
Cut into 3 cm pieces diagonally and bake for 20 minutes.
Genetes from Maria Celestina de Mello e Senna.
We have not yet tested this recipe. It is recorded here to allow experimentation and verification.
10 egg yolks
¾ cup caster sugar
2 oz | 56g butter
2 tbsp shortening
1 cup corn starch
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp anise
Beat yolks and sugar, add butter and beat hard.
Mix baking powder with flour and sift some over the mixture.
throw on a board covered with sifted flour and knead lightly with fingers, adding flour and a little shortening, until the dough does not stick to fingers.
Add anise.
Divide into 4 portions and roll to a thickness of about ½cm. Cut into cookie shapes. Put on an aluminium tray and bake for 25-30 minutes.