Having purchased some pistachio cream to make some chocolates, which didn’t turn out as I had wanted, there was most of a jar of it left. So, I wondered on it for a few days and finally had the idea to make some biscuits with it. Using just a normal recipe for vanilla biscuits and substituting the butter for pistachio cream as well as adding some fresh ginger. It went well…
90g Pistachio Cream
80g Caster sugar
185g Plain flour
1 large egg
1 tsp of vanilla extract
3 tsp fresh crushed ginger
Mix the cream and sugar together to form a smooth paste, whisk the egg, ginger and vanilla together and add to the mixture, combine until smooth. Add the flour and bicarb and form a dough.
Then roll out, cut into desired shapes and place in the fridge for about 15 minutes before cooking. Bake on 160°c (fan oven) for 10-12 minutes or until start to brown. Then place on cooling rack, and enjoy eating them…
An slight upgrade on the previous recipe. We have now added honey and dark chocolate chips, and taken out the coconut. And being honest, it’s gone rather well.
Ingredients:
80g Granulated sugar
80g Demerera sugar
100g butter (at room temp)
3250g Plain Flour / All purpose flour
1/2 tps salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
Juice of 1 orange (or two tangerines) – and some of the rind grated into the mixture
125g oats (you may need to add more if the mixture is a too wet)
2 tsp of orange extract
60g dark choc chips (optional)
Method:
Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth (ish), add the juice, orange rind and extract and mix. Then add the flour, salt and baking soda & powder. Mix until doughy.
Then add the oats by hand and mix through thoroughly. Then put on a baking sheet and flatten out with your hand to about 1 – 2cm depth. (or lay a chopping board over another piece of baking parchment to flatten evenly). Then use a cookie/biscuit cutter to get your desired shape and size.
Put on either a greased baking tray or on baking paper, and cook for around 10 – 15 mins or until going brown at 180 degrees (170 fan assisted).
Tasty biscuits which are actually like mini flapjacks. Apple, cinnamon, honey, ginger and oats. I figured the cakes went well, so why not try grated apple in other things!
Turns out the oat cookie recipe works with orange, just a bit more flour and oats needed to compensate for the orange juice – i’ll update and post the recipe later in case anyone wants to give them a go. Also decided to get some cherries and make cherry turnovers, as they are a favourite. I haven’t had a cherry turnover since the ‘Nobody likes a mouldy turnover‘ incident with the local bakery.
But it inspired me to start baking more at home, so it turned out to be a good thing.
Seperately cream the butter and sugar together, add the egg, orange zest and juice and mix until you have what looks like a horrible scrambled egg type mixture. Then add half the flour and mix through, then add the rest of the flour and mix well until you have a creamy looking dough and pop in the fridge for a bit.
I never usually let anything rest in between, but this time I did, having ruined the first batch with lemon a couple of weeks ago, and addressed an long standing issue I have with baking biscuits and them going wrong. Turns out impatience and ignorance were the culprit! No real surprise there for me. But I gave thought to what it is I get wrong, and there appeared to be a theme with these, they spread and don’t hold their shape. So, finally thought to ask the internet, and turns out it’s the butter being too warm obviously having been a room temp the whole time (or even melted first for choch chip cookies) and then being worked on and getting warmer. The trick is apparently to put in in the fridge or freezer for a time once you have made the dough, so it can solid up again. Makes sense know I now, and it worked, obviously. It’s my own fault as the video which I got this recipe from (linked at the bottom) clearly tells you to put it in the fridge, but you know how it is, sometimes we think we know best.
After creating small balls of dough, they are then rolled in icing sugar and placed on baking paper on a tray and into the oven. I’m going to see if tangerine’s work just as well for this later, and in ice-cream, so fingers crossed for more orangey snack and treats 🙂
(c) K Wicks
Here is the link to the YouTube vid where got the recipe and method, just swapped the lemon for orange.
MKW Publishing 