At the risk of being tagged a "troll", here's my two cents on this old thread. I've had an empty box of Jules Destrooper's Almond Thins on my computer desk for several months to remind me to look again to see if anyone has developed a recipe and put it online. (I tried it a couple of times myself at first but the results were, well, disappointing.) I found this thread on today's Google search. I don't know anything about Trader Joe's similar cookies, as we don't have that supermarket chain in the New Orleans area, but the list of ingredients in the Destrooper butter almond cookie is clearly different from the "Destrooper" recipe linked above at Yahoo! Answers: INGREDIENTS: WHEAT FLOUR, BROWN SUGAR, BUTTER, ALMONDS, SALT. (Listed in that order.) Of note: no egg, no vanilla. The only sources of moisture in the genuine Destrooper's are the brown sugar and the butter and I'm guessing I could try a dozen more times before I figured out the proportions and baking technique that would work. (I'm an OK cook but not that much of a baker.) Perhaps "WHEAT FLOUR" is how folks in Belgium refer to "whole wheat flour" but I'm not thinking this is the critical difference, at least vis-a-vis Destrooper's (versus Trader Joe's). I'm thinking that adding egg and vanilla and omitting the molasses flavor of the brown sugar would tend to make a very different cookie, regardless of the proportions of other ingredients and the baking technique. I'll let you know if I ever figure it out...

Here's a recipe I got from a Danish cookbook: Napoleons Time: about 45 minutes. Makes about 15. 1 package frozen puff pastry (one packet contains 425 g/15 oz), or make the same amount from scratch Thaw the puff pastry. Cut each sheet into three even-sized pieces. Put them on a cookie sheet and bake on the center rung of the oven for about 20 minutes (the original recipe gives no temperature, but my guess is 180°C/350°F). Cool on a cooling rack. Custard: 2 eggs 2 tbs sugar 2 tbs cornflour 250 ml/8.5 fl.oz. milk 1/2 vanilla pod Slice the vanilla pod down the middle and scrape out the seeds. Whip together the eggs, vanilla seeds, sugar and cornflour. Put the vanilla pod in the milk and warm to the boiling point in a saucepan. Remove the vanilla pod and whisk the milk into the egg mixture. Pour the custard back into the saucepan and warm up to the boiling point, whisking constantly, until thickened. Cool. Glaze: 150 g/5.3 oz icing sugar 1 tbs rum or water Topping: Raspberry marmalade or jam 250 ml/8.5 fl.oz. whipping cream To make the glaze, stir together the icing sugar and rum/water. Split each pastry puff horizontally into two about equally thick pieces. Put a thin layer of marmalade on the bottom piece of each pastry. Add a spoonful of custard and top with the other piece of the same pastry. Add a thin layer of glaze on top of each pastry. Whip the cream, put in a pastry bag with a fluting nozzle and decorate the pastries.

I bet you could freeze them, I put them in the fridge and I liked them cold! I used two sheet pans and by the time I finished scooping for the second sheet pan, those cookies came out a lot flatter. Next time I think I will bake one sheet at a time and keep the other sheet pan in the fridge. I never get 100 percent perfection when I bake :) but they sure tasted good!

Eileen, thank you so much for your enlightening tips such as about your egg-yolk cookies being firm, and about baking soda acting as leavener. And thanks for the sweetheart recipe, which cookies btw are adorable. The recipe looks simple - which is what i like! As for ginger/pepper in any posted recipes, of course I'd have omitted those, but they were tentative demo's anyway. (I'm assuming I can substitute the sugar (of sweetheart) with my brown-sugar, which taste I prefer? Naturally, I'd not be making hearts, rather button-hole cookies. I hope I'll be able to find locally some brown gingham 1/4" ribbon. Or polka-dot. Something like this in brown: https://www.walmart.com/ip/1-4-X-25Yard-Gingham-Pull-Bow-String-Ribbon-Pink-Baby-Shower-Favor-Decorating/618986422 Note my O.P. cookies were done because a neighbor got married. And this next batch I was planning for a great-niece, who got engaged (pending wedding). I don't like the idea of sugary borders (given my various dental saga's I don't wish to promote tooth decay. I also wish to keep them "chewy" and a sugar-crunch border isn't pure-chewy) So I've been ransacking images for a fridge cookie with an Inner-Concentric circle bordered by a color-contrast Outer-Concentric circle. Whereupon I'd punch two holes into the Inner-Concentric. All I came up with - was the attached pic, but it was a dead-link, thus no recipe. Anyway, below is the pic which i said interests me. Any idea how its concentric-border is achieved? I also wish the tiger-author would have provided a video! The only vid's on youtube are of zebra-cookies which aren't even as gorgeous as those tiger ones.