To make the oat flour – Use a high speed/powerful blender or a coffee grinder and grind the oats in batches until a smooth powder forms. I used about 1 ½ cups of oats to get the required oat flour.
In a food processor, add the almonds and about 2 tablespoon of rice flour and pulse it form a powder. The rice flour helps in not making the almond too oily. Instead of running the food processor on high, pulse it in short intervals to prevent the almonds from becoming too oily.
To this add the remaining rice flour, oat flour, sugar, baking soda and salt and pulse to blend.
Now add the almond extract, butter and the cream cheese (both cut into small chunks) to the flour mixture and pulse until a smooth dough forms. Do not work it too much as the cookies will become too crumbly.
Turn the dough on a parchment paper and roll it into a 2 inches wide log. Chill the dough for at least 4 hours or overnight if possible.
When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 325 F and line two baking sheets with parchment.
Unwrap the chilled dough and roll it in coarse sugar. I used the color sugar to roll my dough in.
Use a thin sharp knife and cut the log into ¼ inch thick slices. Try to keep the thickness uniform.
Place the cookies about an inch apart of the tray and bake for 20 – 25 minutes rotating the tray top to bottom and front to back. Bake until the cookies are golden brown at the edges.
Set the pans on cooling racks and cool completely. Store in an airtight container to retain the freshness.
The cookies store very well for about 2 weeks at room temperature.