Almond Biscotti

Biscotti was in my 'to bake' list for a long time and finally I made it yesterday for my kid's teachers. Biscotti's are traditional Italian cookie which are long curve shaped, baked with only eggs and sugar as the main ingredients. No fat is added to these cookies. It has a crisp and crunchy texture, great with a cup of tea and it stores well for several days.

Ingredients:
1 cup blanched whole almonds
3 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/8th tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp almond essence


Method:
Blanching the almonds:
Boil the water in a sauce pan and add the whole almonds. Leave them in the boiling water for exactly 1 min.
Then drain the water and remove the skin. The nut just easily pops out of the skin.
Cool the nuts


Toasting the almonds
Heat the oven to 350F
Spread the cooled almonds on a baking sheet
Bake for 10 mins or until the nuts are slightly brown and fragrant


Baking of the Biscotti is done in two parts.

Baking the Biscotti - Part 1
Preheat the oven to 300F.Line the baking sheet with parchment paper or wax paper
Stir the flour and salt in a bowl.
Roughly chop the toasted almonds
Beat the eggs and sugar till pale and creamy. If you lift the beater the mixture should fall into ribbons
Now add the vanilla and almond essence, and beat for 2 mins .
Now add the dry ingredients slowly and beat till incorporated.
The dough is very sticky at this point.
Dust the working surface and your palms with flour.
Transfer the dough to the floured surface and shape it to a log of about 12 inch in length and 3 - 4 inch in width.
Transfer the log to the prepared baking sheet. Bake for about 30-40 mins or until firm to touch.
Cool on a wire rack for 15 mins

Part 2:
Cut the log into thin slices of about 1/2 inch thickness.  Arrange the slices , cut side down on baking sheet and bake for 10 mins. Turn the slices over and bake for another 10 mins or until brown and crispy.
Remove from oven and let cool. Store in airtight container.
This measure yields about 15-16 slices, depends on how thin you slice it.

Wish you all Happy Holidays :)

Sugar Cookies

Baked my first batch of cookies for the season. It all started when my son came home from school whinning about how they made cookies at school and how he wanted to do the same at home. It was funny to watch him explaining the whole act of making the cookies as if trying to teach me how to do it. He was like "Don't make round balls amma, roll out like chapati and I will cut into shapes". Nowadays kids are very clear about what they want and how they want it.

Ingredients:
1 and 1/2 cup cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup unsalted butter , room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract


Method:
Sift the flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl
Beat the butter and sugar till light and fluffy (2 -3 mins)
Add the egg abd beat for another 2 mins until pale and creamy
Now add the Vanilla extract and beat for another minute.
Add the flour mixture and beat till combined.
Take out the dough and shape it to a disc, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.
Roll out the dough and cut into shapes. 
Place the cut out dough on tray covered with wax paper or parchment paper.
Sprinkle some coloured sugar or sprinklers or plain white sugar. (optional)
Bake for  8 - 10 mins. The edges should be slightly brown.
Cool on a wire rack. This measurement yields about 18-20 medium sized cookies

These cookies turned out not as sugary as I thought it would be.It was buttery and mildly sweet.
Note:
Always keep the unused dough covered with plastic wrap.
You can also freeze the remaining dough and used it later


My first attempt in decorating  Sugar Cookies.
I attempted to decorate some of the cookies after being inspired by this post from Aparna
I used the same recipe she gave there  for icing. The icing was little bit thin .
for me so I added a tsp of corn starch and some more sugar to thicken it up. At first it was very difficult to get hold of the process, after a few cookies or rather mishaps, some of them came out better.
It takes a lot of patience and time to decorate the cookies, may be it will ease up  with practice. My son likes it, so that's all it takes for me to try it again :)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup icing sugar
2 tsp corn starch
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp milk/water
a drop of required colour.


Mix everything well except the colour. Increase the water /milk by a tsp at a time if want to thin the Icing.
Increase the sugar and cornstarch by 1/2 tsp each to thicken the icing.
Seperate into small bowls and add the required colour. I used cocoa powder to get the brown colour.
I used little ziplog bags for the piping.Make sure to cut a tiny hole to get a smooth line.

Have a nice weekend :)


Sending these cookies to the 'Sinful delights ' events at "Zesty Pallete" 

Short Bread Cookies with Chocolate Dipping.

This is one of the cookies that I baked during the holidays.I had a list of cookies planned out for the holidays, but this one sneaked into the list at the last minute. I usually avoid short bread cookies for their high butter content but the cute picture in Joy of Baking attracted me very much. I had all the ingredients on hand including the chocolate, so decided to make these in the last minute. One more reason to make these was to put my cookie cutter to use as the other ones did'nt need them. 

Source : Joy of Baking 
Ingredients :
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter at room temperature
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract.


For the dipping:
180 gms of cooking chocolate


Method:
 Sift the flour and salt in a bowl.
In an other bowl beat the butter with a hand mixer until fluffy.
To this add the sugar and beat until creamy.Add the vanilla essence and beat for another minute.
Tip in the flour mixture and mix gently. Take the dough out on a lightly floured surface and brig it together with your hands. Flatten it to disc shape , cover with the plastic wrap and refrigerate for atleast one hour


Preheat the Oven to 180C
Roll out the dough to a quarter inch thickness and cut into desired shapes.
Place the cut out cookies on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.
Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the edges are slightly brown.

Note:
I did everything as per the recipe and refrigerated the dough for about 2 hrs. When I was ready to roll the dough it became so hard that it cracked and crumbled. After few minutes of trying I decided to add a tablespoon of water and microwave for 30 sec. Then I was able to roll it out easily between parchment paper and cut into shapes. I dont have a clue about why this happened , but it worked out very well in the end. So if you face the same problem, just go ahead and do the same :)

For the chocolate dipping:
Place 90 gms of chopped chocolate on a heat proof bowl place over a pot of simmering water.
Once the chocolate has melted remove from heat and add the remaining chocolate.
Mix with a wooden sppon until completly melted and glossy.
Dip the cookies one by one and place it on tray lined with parchment paper.Refrigerate for atleast 20 mins or until the chocolate is hardenned.

Sending these to Srivalli's Kids Delight - Chocolate event.

Cookies Galore

Baked lot of cookies this holiday season for sharing with Friends and Neighbors.  Here's a quick peek on to them

From the left: Oatmeal Raisin Coconut Cookies (my personal favorite) , Mexican wedding cookies, Almond Macaroons, Shortbread cookies with chocolate dipping.

Yet to blog about the last two, probably after the holidays. Till then have a blasting weekend.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year.

Viennese Shortbreads/Biscuits with chocolate buttercream filling

Hi all , how have you been? December has started and its time to bake some cookies. Here's an interesting bake that I made this week from a book called  "Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook" which showcases traditional British recipes right from soups to desserts. Its a pretty old book published in the 70's , but the pictures are absolutely amazing. After baking Hot Cross Buns last year, I dutifully flip through the pages every night deciding on which ones to try next. Finally decided to try out this Viennese shortbread cookies.
What interested me most was the method of making these cookies. Rather than rolling and cutting or making small balls, these involved piping out the dough using a Icing bag.

The original recipe is for Orange shortbread, but omitted them as I am not so fond of the citrus flavor in any baked goodies.

Ingredients:

1 cup All purpose flour
1 cup cornflour(white)
3/4 cup butters
2/3 cup confectioner's sugar, sifted
extra confectioner's sugar to decorate.

For the Buttercream:
 4 tblsp butter
1 cup Icing sugar
2 tblsp cooking chocolate, melted

Method:
Preheat the oven for 180C/350F
Sift the flour and cornflour(cornstartch) together into a bowl.
Cream the butter, icing sugar in a large mixing bowl until very soft and light.
Gradually beat in the sifted flour and cornflour.
Put the mixture in the piping bag fitted with a large star tube (6mm) and pipe out small circles, rosettes or fingers on an ungreased baking sheet.
Bake in the centre of the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes.
The shortbread should crisp without becoming too brown.
Leave to cool on the baking sheet.

Note:   Its very important to cream the butter and sugar until soft otherwise, when the flour is added, the mixture would be too stiff to pipe. Add a 1 or 2 tablespoons of milk or water if too stiff to pipe.

For the Buttercream:
Cream together the butter and Icing sugar for the filling.
Melt the chocolate on a heatproof bowl over a pot of boiling water.Let it cool down.
Add the chocolate and mix well. When the biscuits are cold sandwich together in parts with the buttercream, and dust the tops with sieved icing sugar.

I wanted to use the star tip for these as in the picture from the book, but mine was too small to pipe out the dough and thus ended up in circles. The biscuits were soft and buttery, not too sweet, very different from the regular butter or sugar cookies. This recipe is definitely a keeper.

The cookies filled up with chocolate buttercream..

.I know I went a little overboard on the chocolate filling but hey its chocolate...

The biscuits tasted good on its own, but the chocolate filling enhanced the sweetness of the biscuits as well as the taste. 

Sorry for the poor lighting in the picture but this is what I could get out of the gloomy dark winter weather over here  :)    Sending this off to Champa's Bake-off event at Versatile kitchen.

Bye and have a nice weekend.

Oatmeal Raisin Coconut Cookies

Its been two months since I moved to a new place or I should say its been two months since I baked anything. But I have lots of cakes and cookies, neatly organised in my folders, waiting to be posted.They were the result of the baking marathon I ventured during the last week of december amidst all the chaeos of packing and cleaning.  I baked some cookies, cakes, brownies, and breads as if the world is going to end the next day. Since it was the holiday season, I didnt have to worry about finishing up everything as they were neatly packed and distributed to friends and collegues as soon as they have been photographed. 



These Oatmeal Raisin Coconut cookies were past of that marathon as well as my first attempt in baking the cookies. I made two batches of these following two different recipes.This is the first version. It turned out crispy and chewy , just the way I wanted. This gave me the confidence to try out the mexican wedding cookies that was posted earlier for global kadai event.

I adapted the recipe from here. I modified/added/removed some ingredients as per my taste.

Ingredients:

1 cup Softened butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp Vanilla extract

3 cups of Instant oats
11/2 cup of Flour
1 tsp Baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup of raisins
1 cup dry unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts.


Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C
In a wide pan, slightly toast the oats, coconut and walnuts one by one and keep seperatly.
Toasting bring out the nice flavour in all the above three ingredients, but take care not to brown it.
In a small bowl beat one egg alond with the vanilla extract.

Now cream the softened butter and the sugars for 2- 3 minutes using a electric mixture.
Mix in the beaten egg mixture and beat till it becomes creamy.

Now add the flour and mix till its well combined.
Stir in the toasted oats , coconut , raisins and walnuts.

Line the cookie tray with parchment paper and spoon in the mixture.
Gently press each portion with the back of the spoon. Place them well apart.
Bake for 10  - 12mins. Mine took 12 mins. So keep an eye after 10 mins.
The cookies will be soft in the center after 10 mins, not to worry, it will become crisp as it cools down. So if the base it browned and crisp, you are good to go.

This recipe gave me 48 medium sized cookies.

Mexican Wedding Cookies for "Global Kadai" Event

Baked these delicious cookies on the day before New year, especially for the "Global Kadai Event" at Cilantro's. For those who are not familiar with the event click here for more details. The cookies were so soft and delicate to the touch. This is the first time I have made, as well as tasted the cookies, it was absolutely melt in the mouth delicious. The taste was somewhat similar to our traditional 'Nankhattai' , but the later uses ghee instead of butter and the recipe is also slightly different.

The recipe given by Cilantro, had chocolate and cocoa, which I didnt use, because I somehow wanted my cookies to be white :).  I used slightly toasted and finely chopped almonds and cardomom to bring out the Indian flavours. Made two batches in two different shapes. I rolled one part of the dough to 1/2 inch thickness between parchment paper and the cut into crecent shapes, and for the other part simply shaped them into round balls(as per the recipe), both baked beautifully.

Here is my Indianised version of the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 cup softened butter
1/2 cup confectionery sugar.
1 tsp vanilla essence
13/4 cup All Purpose flour
1 cup slightly toasted and finly chopped almonds
1/2 tsp of cardomom powder.( or crush 4 pods of cardomom to a fine powder  using chapati roller)
1 pinch salt

Method.
In a Pan slightly toast the almonds for 7-8 mins and chop as finely as possible
Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl until creamy until light and fluffy.
Add the vanilla essence and beat for a min
Now gradually add the flour , cardomom powder and the chopped almonds. Mix with a spatula or spoon gently.
Work with your hand and gently gather the dough and make it into a ball.

Wrap the dough in a platic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for minimum 15 mins.

Preheat the oven to 180C.
Line the baking tray with parchemnt paper or lighlty butter the tray.
Make lime sized balls and place 2 inch apart. Bake for 15 - 18 mins.
For the crecent shaped ones, I rolled the dough to 1/2 inch thickness and then cut into crecents using a lid.

Do not worry if the cookies are still soft in the center of after 18 mins. They get firm after cooled for a few minutes. Take the tray out of the oven and leave the cookies in the tray for 2 mins.

Dust with powdered sugar while its still warm and then transfer gently to storing jar

I thank Cilantro for announcing this recipe as part of the event, otherwise I definitly would not have tried these cookies. I throughly enjoyed baking this one along with my son, who helped me in cutting the crecent shaped ones.

Have you Baked your Cookies yet?...Hurry the last date for this event is January 31st and also stay tuned for the announcement of the dish for the "Global Kadai" event for the month of February hosted right here.

After I published this post , I realised from my dashboard that its my 100th post.

Feel happy... but not much proud about it as it took so long (from 2006) to get here because of my frequent long breaks and not to mention the lazy me...anyways CHEERS!!!!