pistachio

Santa’s Whiskers (Pistachio and Cranberry Cookies)

FeaturedLeave a comment

A bit late with this Christmas recipe, but I love these buttery cookies, dotted with festive red and green from pistachios and dried cranberries. The traditional recipe uses glace cherries, but I think this makes the cookies just too sweet. So it depends how much of a sweet tooth you have.

The whiskers part is from the shredded coconut on the edge of the cookies that is meant to resemble Santa’s whiskers. You can easily scale up this recipe if you want to give these as gifts. If you’re having visitors over Christmas you can keep the prepared dough in your fridge for a day or two and just bake before people arrive.

Makes 8-10

110 Grams Butter (softened)

Ingredients

75 Grams Sugar

1 Tablespoon Milk

1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla extract

175 Grams Plain flour

30 Grams Dried cranberries

30 Grams Pistachios (shelled)

50 Grams Desiccated coconut

Method

  • Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric whisk
  • Add the milk and vanilla extract
  • Stir in the flour and mix until well combined, add the cranberries and pistachios and then get your hands into the bowl and gently shape press the dough together
  • Place a sheet cling film on your counter top, and sprinkle it with the coconut
  • Shape the cookie dough into a sausage shape, about 3-4 cm in diameter and set on top of the coconut and gently press the coconut into the sides of the cookie dough sausage until it is thoroughly coated
  • Wrap the cling film tightly around the cookie dough and refrigerate for at least one hour
  • When you are ready to bake the cookie, preheat the oven to 180 degrees (Celsius)
  • Line a baking try with a silicon liner or baking parchment,
  • Slice the cookies into 1 cm rounds and place on the baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes and remove from the over. Allow them to firm up on the baking sheet when you remove them from the oven before moving to a wire try to cool down

No Churn Pistachio and Rose Water Ice Cream

Seaneen's Sunnyside KitchenLeave a comment

Making ice-cream without an ice cream maker is a pain, but this recipe is super easy and doesn’t need one (who needs another appliance you’ll only use a couple of times a year clogging up your kitchen).

Ingredients

400 mil Condensed Milk

200 Mil Double (heavy) cream

1 Tsp Rose Water (don’t be tempted add more, trust me this is enough)

50 Grams Pistachios

Pink food colouring (optional)

Method

  • Add the condensed milk and cream to a large bowl and whisk with an electric whisk (or use a stand mixer) until thick and nearly doubled in size
  • Mix the rose water and food colouring if you’re using it, together and whisk in the cream mix
  • With a spatula gently fold in 2/3 of the pistachios
  • Line a 1lb loaf tin with cling film, leaving 6-7cm  hanging over each end
  • Pour the ice cream mix into the loaf tin and sprinkle the top with remaining pistachios (I had some rose petals and sprinkled these across too, because i was feeling fancy)
  • Cover the ice cream with the extra cling film hanging over the ends of the tin.  Freeze for at least 6 hours

Persian Love Cake

Seaneen's Sunnyside Kitchen2 Comments

This cake tastes and smells unbelievable!

Yasmin Khan’s (The Saffron Tales), recipe marries zesty lemon, the warmth of cardamom and gentle fragrance of rose water in a cake rich with ground almonds. You’ll need 2-3 lemons in total, and a word of warning about rose water, don’t be tempted to add more than stated in the recipe.

While there are a couple of steps to this cake its worth the effort, I decorated this with chopped pistachios and dried rose petals (you find these and rose water in most bigger Asian grocers (or you could use fresh petals if you’re lucky enough to have them in your garden). I don’t have an especially delicate touch when decorating cakes and my piping skills are questionable, so this is a good way to make your cake look beautiful with very little effort.

Legend has it that women in Persia would bake this cake to try and win the heart of men who caught their eye. So if you’re currently trying to get someone’s attention, it might be worth a try (and let me know if it works).

Serves 8

For the Cake

200 Grams Butter

150 Grams Caster sugar

4 Eggs

1 level tsp of Ground cardamom

100 Grams Plain flour

275 Grams Ground almonds

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 Tbsp Baking powder

1 Tbsp Rose Water

For the Drizzle

2 Tbsp Caster Sugar

1/2 Tsp rose water

Juice of 1 lemon

For the icing

150 Grams Icing Sugar

Juice of 1 lemon

Top with chopped pistachios and dried rose petals (optional, but it will make your cake look really pretty)

  • Preheat your oven to 160 degrees (Celsius). Line a 9 inch cake tin with baking parchment (ideally one with a removable base)
  • In a large mixing bowl, cream your butter and sugar together thoroughly and then beat in the eggs one at a time, (using a stand mixer if you have one is a quick way to save yourself a lot of work)
  • Gradually add the rest of the ingredients and mix until well combined. Transfer to your lined cake tin and bake for 45 minutes, (test the centre of the cake with a tooth pick, it should come out clean, but if it doesn’t then bake for another 5-10 minutes and test again). Cool in the tin for 10-15 minutes, before transferring to a wire wrack to cool
  • In a small saucepan heat the ingredients for the drizzle, until the sugar has melted. Remove from the heat and allow to cool
  • When the cake has cooled poke random holes in the cake with a toothpick, sprinkle over the cooled drizzle as evenly as possible, I allowed the cake to sit for about an hour to allow the cake to absorb the drizzle and it’s yummy flavours)
  • To make the icing just add lemon juice to the icing sugar and mix well to ensure there are no lumps before spreading it evenly across the cake
  • Sprinkle with chopped pistachios and rose petals
  • This cake will live for 3-4 days in an airtight tin, but will probably not survive that long