Pistachio Cookie Recipe
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes + 15 minutes
Makes 4 giant cookies about 12cms/4.7inches in diameter
For Cookies
- 113g/1 stick butter, cold, cubed
- 70g/2.5ozs brown sugar
- 40g/1.4ozs caster or superfine sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 egg, cold
- 180g/6ozs cake flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 125g/4ozs dark or milk chocolate chips
For Pistachio Filling
- 20g/0.7ozs kataifi toasted and buttered (see below)
- 110g/3.9ozs pistachio paste
- 10g/0.3ozs tahini paste
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
For Decorating
- 100g/3.5ozs chocolate (I like a 50/50 mix of milk and dark chocolate)
- 20g/0.7ozs kataifi toasted and buttered (see below)
- 100g/3.5ozs pistachio paste
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped, toasted pistachios
Step 1 -Place the cold, cubed butter, both types of sugar and vanilla in a mixer fitted with a beater attachment. Beat for 4 minutes on high (it won't feel like it will come together as the butter is cold but it will). Add in the egg and beat for 30 seconds. Don 't worry if it looks curdled, it is fine. In a bowl whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together. Then add this to the butter mixture in the bowl and beat on the lowest speed until just combined. Mix in the chocolate chips by hand. Divide into 4 even sized balls.
Step 2 - Preheat oven to 180C/350F or 160C/320F fan forced and line 2 baking trays with parchment. Mix the kataifi for the stuffing with the pistachio paste, tahini and salt. Flatten the dough and then spoon a tablespoon of the filling into it and gather up the sides of the dough to seal and shape into a ball. Repeat with the remaining dough balls and filling.
Step 3 - Bake 2 cookies per tray set wide apart as they spread. Bake for 20-22 minutes until golden and baked in the centre. Rest on the tray for 20 minutes to cool (they are delicate when they come out of the oven).
Step 4 - Melt the chocolate in a microwave or a double boiler. Spoon over the top of each cooled cookie. Then mix the toasted kataifi and pistachio paste together in a bowl and spoon some in the centre. Sprinkle chopped pistachios around the centre.
Toasted Kataifi Pastry
- 75g/2.5ozs kataifi pastry, chopped and separated
- 30g/1oz butter
Step 1 - In a large frying pan with high sides melt the butter on medium heat and add the kataifi pastry breaking it up as you add it in. Toast the kataifi pastry well all over. This will take around 10 minutes to toast the whole batch. This is very important to ensure that you get the requisite crunch.
Speaking of baking and my oven, for the last 6 months I've been asking Mr NQN to fix the light on my rangehood. It's not old, it's quite new in fact but suddenly I found that the light was quite dim and not as bright as it used to be. "The bulb must have blown," I thought to myself.
I looked up a youtube video on how to change a rangehood light and it looked relatively simple. But for months and months Mr NQN avoided doing it. But one day I knew he was headed to the hardware store to buy something else so I cornered him into having a look. He took out the grills and then fiddled around the lights. He had to take three screws out with a screwdriver and it all seemed a bit more complicated than it should be. Then he started flicking the light switches and then a bright light flooded the area.
He looked at me and I looked at him. "Er what?" I asked as the light dawned on me, literally.
It turned out that I just wasn't switching the right switch on. The bulb hadn't blown, it was there all along, I just didn't look closely enough at what each switch's function was and apparently this switch made it either a dim light or a bright one!
I offered him one of the pistachio cookies as a peace offering.
So tell me Dear Reader, do these sorts of things ever happen to you? Do you ever give peace offerings of food?