eighteen - pistachio cookies



These are the tiniest cookies on this blog so far. For when you want something sweet with your coffee/tea/sweet wine, but only one bite full. Or to fill up the gaps on your Christmas cookie platter maybe?

I wanted to make something with pistachios, and not much more. Like Sicilian paste di mandorla; only egg whites, nuts and sugar. No flour, no butter. I added a bit of salt and citrus zest, and that's it.






Anyway, these are precious little gems. I mixed pistachios and almonds but you could make them all pistachio, of course. They will turn out even more green and pretty. But don't worry, they will have a great pistachio flavour either way.
I topped them with chocolate because I like to top almost everything with chocolate. It goes really well with the pistachios, but you could omit it.




Recipe (adapted from this one, makes about 30 cookies)

80 grams pistachios
80 grams almonds (or substitute with more pistachios)
80 grams golden cane sugar
1 Tablespoon mild honey
1 egg white
1 teaspoon of lemon or orange juice
zest of half an orange
zest of half a lemon
a pinch of salt
30 grams dark chocolate and some chopped pistachios for decoration (optional)


Preheat your oven to 170º C fan.

Blitz pistachios and almonds (I left them a bit coarse).
Mix them with the sugar, honey, salt and zest.

Add the juice and then the egg white. Don't add all of it at once, proceed bit by bit, stirring the mixture. I only needed half of it. You have to be able to shape your dough into balls, so it shouldn't be too sticky.
Form little balls with your hands, mine were somewhere between a marble and a walnut.

Place them on a lined baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes, until firm and slightly golden.

Let cool on a rack.
Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of hot water. Spoon some of it on every cookie and top with chopped pistachios.

Let dry and store in an airtight container for up to a week.




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