I succeeded to post the recipe at the second attempt. I baked this biscotti for the first time early this summer for a special Tuscan dinner with friends, writing the ingredients on a small piece of paper and losing it as expected at the end of the evening. It’s always the same: you put the notes scribbled down with codes and abbreviations that only you can understand in that book because you are sure you will easily remember that it is there, except then forgetting about it after 5 minutes, giving the recipe for missing for the months to come.

The same happened with the small duvet buttons, put into the box on the shelf because it was clear that I would have searched for them there the next year… and of course I secured the duvet to the sheets with pegs for months! And it happened again with the new necklace I bought in Germany, put in the most obvious and easy place to remember and found at the end of the season during the wardrobe change, just by chance.

But here I admit it, Your Honor, I’m a persistent offender with recipe notes. I even bought a black Moleskine just for my recipes, but most of the times I forget to write there ingredients, temperature and steps on the glossy pages of my diary.

As in the best fairy tales, when you least expect it the slip of paper comes out, and the only thing you need to do is to decrypt with archaeologist attention my infamous abbreviations, so obvious when you note them down for the first time, so obscure when you find out the recipe months later.

After having sent a good bunch of darns to the past me, who insists on writing half in Italian and half in English, hopping from language to language and from units of measurement to units of measurement, I eventually managed to reconstruct the basic recipe of the cantuccini made with chestnut flour.

Since in this period I’m playing with alternative flour and sweeteners, influenced Heidi Swanson‘s useful and mind-opening books, I slightly changed the original cantuccini recipe, trying to make them mirror the amazing colours and flavours of autumn.

I chose the chestnut flour, so sweet, and a whole oat flour, enchanted by how Heidi describes it: in her opinion it gives a moist and creamy sweetness to cookies and cakes. Just to bring these biscotti a step further in the scale of indulgence, I stirred in a generous handful of 70% dark chocolate drops, strong and slightly bitter. Now pull out the vinsanto, the cantuccini are ready!

You can store the chestnut flour in a tightly closed plastic box or bag in the freezer: since it is obtained from dried chestnuts, it will keep the floury texture, without turning into a frozen brick.

For an improvised snack with the dear flavour of the ancient times just stir the sweet flour with water until you get a smooth and liquid batter, similar to the pancake mixture. Brush with extra-virgin olive a small non-stick pan, heat it on the stove and pour a spoonful of batter into the pan, spreading it evenly. Cook for a very few minutes on both sides and enjoy necci, chestnut pancakes typical of the Garfagnana area, simply good with just a dusting of icing sugar or a spoonful of fresh ricotta.

If you love chestnut flour just like I do – after all when you taste the best quality chestnut flour it will be like having a chestnut melting on your tongue, such a real taste -, do not miss castagnaccio, the most typical and rustic chestnut cake, made just with olive oil, rosemary, raisins and pine nuts.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Chestnut flour and chocolate drops biscotti

You should be interested also in:

1. DB Challenge: crostata with 2 fillings {chocolate & tahini and chestnut pastry cream}
2. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: chestnut cake
3. Jamie Oliver’s Two-nuts Chocolate Cake

The Italian word spirito (spirit) has many meanings. Whatever meaning of spirito you’re considering, you definitely need spirito to face your life. Why? Let’s have a look!

In your life you need (spirit) power of observation, because the opportunities, such as trains, often stop where you are only once, so you must be well prepared to grab them, even if you have to run after them, losing on the road the heels, the scarf and even your hat (do you remember that old black-and-white films with those beautiful steam trains on which you can jump onto at the very last moment? Well, forget them, have you ever tried to hop onto a high-speed train?).

In your life you need enterprise spirit, that is, you need to be enterprising, said the girl who – to ask a guy out – loses herself in the international waters of words (yes, I admit, I believe in gender equality but if only you could go back to the ’60s, when a girl was supposed to be sitting with a skirt balloon, a string of pearls, a pastel twin sets and ribbon shoes and a guy was supposed to ask her to dance… oh! everything would be much easier).

In your life you need spirit of adaptability. The second time I went to London I found myself in a hostel with a tiny bathroom. It was so tiny that, when you wanted to brush your teeth, you could spit the water on your feet or beat your head in the mirror. Well, it’s okay! I enjoyed London with a bump in my head for the entire weekend, bu my breath smelled of mint! London is well worth a bump.

In your life you need team spirit. This can be testified by my colleagues when the three of us moved one of our cars that had stopped at 100 meters from the office. Once understood that the hand brake had to be released, it was much easier and with synchronous pushes and labor room encouragements,we were able to bring the car in the parking lot. Girl power!

In your life you spirito – wit – to not take yourself too seriously, to laugh of yourself!

… and if you need wit and spirit in your life, you definitely need my Aunt Teresa’s wine doughnut cookies! They are the easiest cookies I have ever done, fun to mix and shape. The recipe calls just for very few ingredients that you can always easily find at home, you can customize them as you prefer, adding spices and nuts, and, moreover, they are light and suitable for those who are lactose intolerant, not to mention that they are really fun for children.

They can be considered an old-fashioned afternoon break, like the traditional and ever green sugar, wine & bread. Or you can munch on them after dinner, cuddled up on your favourite armchair reading a book that takes your breath away. They can be stored in a tin box for several days. With these ingredients you will get a hundred little doughnut cookies, ideal to slip one per finger on each hand (yes, you counted correctly, 10 doughnut cookies! but come on, they should last for a while otherwise you’ll run out of nibbles just at the climax of the book!).

Ingredients (make approximately 100 – 120 cookies):

• caster sugar, 1 glass + extra sugar to sprinkle over cookies
• extra virgin olive oil*, 1 glass
• white wine**, 1 glass
• plain flour, all the flour the dough will take (I used 6 glasses)
• baking powder, 15 g
• grated lemon peel

Pour the sugar, the olive oil and the wine in a large bowl and whisk. Add in the grated lemon peel and begin to mix in the flour with a wooden spoon. After the first glass of flour, sift in the baking powder, then keep on adding flour until the dough becomes plastic and silky, as to let you roll it into small ropes (I used about 6 glasses of flour). Let it rest 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Roll the dough into small ropes. Coil the ropes into round doughnut shapes, leaving a small hole in the middle. Sprinkle the cookies with caster sugar and place them on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Bake for about 10 to 15 minutes and remove from the oven as soon as they get a slight golden colour on the top. Let them cool and store them in a tin box.

* The extra virgin olive oil: I used a sweet, fruity, delicate and light extra virgin olive oil, produced on the Tuscan hills overlooking the sea. It is perfect to use with fish and sweet pastry.

** The wine: Chardonnay Maschio, a sparkling wine with a scent of musk and almond blossoms and a fresh and gentle aftertaste of golden apple (wine description taken from the back label, as you know I”m not and expert of wine!)

Alternative flavour mix: you can use red wine instead of white one, or a sweet wine, vinsanto or passito. You can add other flavorings such as anise seeds, orange peel, cinnamon, cardamom, vanilla or ginger. You may enrich them with dark chocolate chips, raisins soaked in rum, walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts or pine nuts. The possibilities are endless. The mix I chose (a sparkling and flower scented white wine + lemon peel) has proved to be particularly delicate and gentle. The two flavors enhance each other in a fresh and spring harmony.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

You need “spirito” in your life… wine doughnut cookies!

You should be interested also in:

1. Olive oil cookies + some notes on the use of olive oil in confectionery
2. Robert’s Absolute Best Brownies: a life-changing minute
3. Christmas cookies, III episode

This date is written in red on the calendar like every other holiday… yet it is not a common one! January the 6th is red, vivid among the first days of the year, the last day of a joyful carousel of many other jolly numbers as red as candy apples… but there’s something more behind its holiday appearance. December the 25th is a full holiday,with a sense in itself. January the 1st, again, is another holiday that makes sense on itself, standing at the beginning of the calendar, waiting for other red numbers to join the party. But what about January the 6th? What about La Befana (as we call this day)? The 6th is meant to be the last in line, the one that turns off the lights and closes the door.

And then, the silence.

Sadness? Absolutely not! A joyful holiday season is finished, this year more homely and warm than usual, but we’re ready to live another season just as good! Have you noticed that the days are getting longer bit by bit? The light is regaining its kingdom, the air smells of novelty, such as my diary with only a few appointments marked, New Year’s resolutions begin to come true… or maybe not… The important thing is that today starts a cycle that will lead us to talk about strawberries, ice cream and picnic blankets in the blink of an eye!

As spring is still far away for the moment, before closing the door to the festivities and turning out the lights, let me make the last swan song of the Christmas period. If you eat one of these, you can not keep yourself from grasping a second one, and so on. Let me introduce you ricciarelli, almond sweets typical of Siena, covered with icing sugar, with a soft heart that melts in your mouth, fresh and moist, characterized by the piercing smell of bitter almonds.

The origin of ricciarelli di Siena dates back to the fifteenth century: the almond paste – in the form of marzipan or Marzapanetti – was once very popular in the town and Siena was famous even outside its territory for its production. The cookies made with almond paste were reserved for the sumptuous banquet of the Lords because they were made of precious ingredients, mainly almonds and sugar. They were so valuable and refined that marzipan sweets were sold in the apothecaries shops  along with drugs and the most exotic spices of the time.

This recipe comes from the grocery shop Rosi in Poggibonsi (SI), slightly revised. Last year I followed their doses to make cavallucci - very good - this year I tried ricciarelli - the real ricciarelli di Siena - and next year I already know that I will venture myself to the panforte (gingerbread). I love to enter their shop during the holidays because it is full of smells of spices, happy-eyed children and chocolate… but, most importantly, it is full of people talking in code: can you give me the ricciarelli dose for three? stuff for cavallucci without candied fruit, double nuts. Gimme my usual and gimme the spices, too. It’s a turnaround of numbers, doses, tips offered in a lowered voice, small pieces of written paper and puffs of icing sugar, and the result is this! Ricciarelli di Siena.

Ingredients for about 20 ricciarelli:

• egg whites, 2
• lemon juice, 1 drop
• icing sugar, 200 g
• ground almond flour, 200 g
• bitter almond extract, 2 tablespoons
• seeds from 1 pod of vanilla
• grated zest of 1 orange
• extra icing sugar, about 200 g
• white wafer, 1 large sheet (about as large as a  A4 paper)

The night before. Whip the egg whites with a drop of lemon juice to stiff peaks. Fold in 200 g of icing sugar and the ground almond flour. Mix in the bitter almond extract, the grated peel of one orange and the vanilla seeds. Cover with cling-film and set aside in the fridge overnight (or at least for 4 hours).

The day after. Cut out about twenty (approximately 7 cm x 4 cm) ovals from the wafer sheet: they are meant to be the basis of ricciarelli. Place the extra icing sugar on a working surface. Roll the rough into a sausage and cut out small balls of dough. with powdered sugar a work plan. Shape the dough with your hands to cover the wafer oval. Make it about 1 cm thick and coat the shaped cookies with extra icing sugar (about 5 mm thick). Arrange them on a baking tin lined with parchment paper or a silicone sheet.

Bake in preheated oven to 160°C for about 18 minutes. They will resemble crinkle cookies. When you remove them from the oven, they will be still soft and moist, but don’t worry! they will reach the ideal texture once cooled down. Store them in an airtight container.. the day after they are even better!

And if I can’t find almond flour? Don’t worry, you can make it at home! Buy the almonds, shell them and remove the outer brown skin (to remove it quickly immerse them for about ten seconds in boiling water). Toast the almonds in the oven at 100°C for about 5 minutes and then let them cool down. Blend them with a tablespoon of icing sugar. Pulse the mixer several times using the pulse function or by pushing the “on” button, holding for a second, and releasing. The goal is not over heating the almonds, otherwise they will release the oil. Blend until you get the consistency of a medium – fine and coarse meal.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Ricciarelli, Siena’s almond cookies

You should be interested also in:

1. Almond and orange tiny cakes for breakfast
2. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: Prato Cookies
3. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: cavallucci, typical Tuscan Christmas cookies

To have a blog, what does this mean? It means to have the chance and the opportunity to meet special people and spend a beautiful day feeling like teenagers on a school trip. We were three, like the three musketeers, like the Three Graces … or rather, seeing what we were able to eat, buy, think… I would say more like the three little pigs!

After a day spent with Caro, from Semplicemente Pepe Rosa, the girl in Technicolor, and Fra, a foodblogger-to-be, who sooner or later will decide to open her own blog, I came home with a bundle of precious ingredients! Long pepper – so long known but smelled fot the first time, real and fragrant vanilla essence, tragacanth gum, candied fruit …

Thanks to these ingredients, and due to the sudden lack of butter exactly when I decided to prepare cookies for a friend, I dared my first approach with the pastry made with olive oil. That was love, love at first sight! It seems that the butter can be replaced with a quantity of olive oil equivalent to its 2/3. Mostly it is probably an oversimplification, but with these cookies, the proportion has worked magnificently!

I am usually a fierce supporter of the use of butter into desserts, but in this case the result was truly beyond expectations, creating cookies that were very different from the original shortbread, with their own well-defined and very unusual character. I also used the candied fruit and long pepper.

The only care is to use a proper extra virgin olive, light and fruity: you may prefer then light extravirgin olive oils such as those pressed in Liguria and Lombardy, or you can choose other olive oils where the bitter or the spicy are not predominant features. In my case it was an extra virgin olive oil DOP Laghi Lombardi.

Ingredients:

• organic flour 00, 350 gr
• caster sugar, 150 gr
• egg, 1
  
• light and fruity extra virgin olive oil, 100 gr
• vanilla salt, 1 pinch
• baking powder, 1 tablespoon
• candied red fruits (mostly strawberries, then cranberries and cherries) about 150 gr
• vanilla essence, 1 tablespoon
• grated long pepper, half berry
  

Preheat oven to 180°C, static. Sift flour and baking powder in a large bowl. Combine sugar, salt, red fruits, vanilla essence and grated long pepper berry. At this time pour in one beaten egg and extra virgin olive oil and stir with a spoon, then roll the dough into a cylinder shape. It will be very crumbly and soft. You will sense, smell and taste extra virgin olive oil a lot at this point, but after baking, it won’t be so dominant.

Dust a work surface with plenty of flour and roll out the dough with the help of a rolling pin to a thickness of about 5 mm, but not less. Cut out biscuits with cookie cutters and with the help of a spatula put them in a pan lined with parchment paper. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the edges of cookies are lightly golden. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack.

Talking about cookie cutters, I made large cookies (using the butterfly cutter), which are perfect for a quick snack, and tiny and pretty cookies (using my wonderful bunnies, kittens and turtles cutters) which suit very well the afternoon tea. From the leftover dough I made irregular lozenges – I was fed up with the knead/roll/cut operation: at the very end, this really seemed the most suitable shape for this kind of olive oil cookies, giving their simple and refined taste.

Tasting moment. I think I can safely say that these are the best biscuits I’ve ever done: I really loved them, yep! Crunchy, light, defined by the resinous aroma of long pepper that marries beautifully with the sweetness of red fruits and vanilla. You can store them in an airtight container for several days, the problem is that you won’t be able to save the for long time!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Long pepper and red fruits olive oil cookies

You should be interested also in:

1. Olive oil cookies + some notes on the use of olive oil in confectionery
2. You need “spirito” in your life… wine doughnut cookies!
3. Christmas cookies, III episode

As regard me, it’s spring, I know, I know…. weather forecast has said tomorrow it will snow,the Twelfth Night as yet to come, our cupbord is still full of Christmas products, but, as regards me, it’s spring. I just want to let you know that this is the way I live my life! After the First day of the year, I start feeling that the days are getting longer, the air gains a new smell. Maybe it’s all in my mind, but a new adventure has just begun, made up of new calendars and brand new diaries, so, for me, it’s spring or, at least, spring is coming with giant leaps.

Obviously I can’t post asparagus, wild strawberries and fresh herbs recipes, but rember, in a small corner of my heart spring is blooming. So, let’s come back for a while to winter earth and let me show you this recipe of simple cookies, found on last issue of Jamie Magazine together with another recipe that I’ll explain you in next days.

You can giftwrap those cookies for your children, even if at the beginning they were thought for a D.I.Y. Cookie Jar (D.I.Y. that is Do It Yourself, for those who don’t know the meaning): a nice jar with all the ingredients ready to make those cookies… I don’t know how, but it has happened, and the oven was heated and an egg was already in my hands… in one hour I was nibbling at those scrumptious cookies so grateful in my heart for Jamie’s simple and fun recipes.

::::: ROLLED OATS AND RAISINS COOKIES :::::

Ingredients:

• plain flour, 115 gr
• baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon
• groung cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon
• salt, 1/4 teaspoon
• raisins, 150 gr
• rolled oats, 165 gr
• light brown sugar, 125 gr (I used Muscovado sugar, I love the intense and yummy flavour)
• vanilla pod, 1
• softened butter, 115 gr
• egg, 1

Beat softened butter with sugar and seeds scraped from the vanilla pod with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Mix in 1 egg. Combine the rest of the ingredients until smooth. Refrigerate the dough for half an hour, then make  small cookies with the help of a tablespoon and put them on a lined baking sheet, leaving room for them to spread. Flatten cookies with the tablespoon: they shoud not be regular and nice to see. They are so beautiful, so rough outside but sweet and intense inside.

Bake for 10 – 12 minutes, unitl golden at the edges but soft in the middle. Leave them to cool completely: when you remove them form the oven, they are still soft, but they will get firmer in a few minutes.

We really loved them, they are a surprise. Muscovado sugar has enriched the cookies with a strong and sweet aroma, but in the meantime raisins soften them with a fruity flavour. They are perfect for a yummy gift (either as cookies or D.I.Y. Jar) or to nibble at in front of the TV (one of my favourite activities during holidays!).

…and from tomorrow, back to routine and office…

This recipe takes part to the Monthly Challenge of Our Krazy Kitchen What did you bake today? OATMEAL!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Jamie Oliver’s oat and raisins cookies

You should be interested also in:

1. Christmas cookies, III episode
2. Cookies: Christmas reharsal
3. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: cavallucci, typical Tuscan Christmas cookies

I couldn’t make it: yesterday I had to show you a little teasing picture! I was so proud of the light, of my first stained glass cookies, of the wonderful sunny morning spent with my friend Simona and her sweetie daughter making biscuits and laughing. I’m not totally wrapped in Christmas spirit yet, so this will be just a recipe post… let’s keep in contact for Christmas whishes!

For the moment, I’ve made my first Christmas gift, and I spent billions of money in dishes, glasses, forks and knives, all colourful, all in one single item, all for my foodblog! (don’t ask me why, but read this article on FBC site!)

Stained glass cookies [Recipe from Christmas Food - The Australian Women's Weekly, bought in London at Books for Cooks]:

Ingredients:

• softened butter, 250 gr
• caster sugar, 165 gr
• plain flour, 335 gr (I used 500 gr)
• egg, 1
• cold water, 1 tablespoon
• sugar free fruit drops, assorted colours, 90 gr

Split vanilla bean in half lenghthways, scrape seeds into medium bowl with butter, sugar, agg and water and beat with an electric mixer until combined. Stir in sifted flour in two batches. Knead dough on floured surface until smooth. I added more flour than requested, otherwise it was too soft and it was difficult to shape cookies. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes.

Using a rolling pin, gently tap wrapped lollies to crush them slightly. Unwrap lollies, separate by colour into small bowls.

Roll dough between sheets of baking papet to 5mm thickness. I divided the dough into 4 parts, otherwise I would have had a one hectare pastry sheet! Cut shapes from dough using cookie cutter and use smaller cutters to cut out small windows into the cookies. Using a skewer, make a small hole in the top of each cookie for threading through ribbon.

Bake cookies 7 minutes in preheated oven to 180°C. Remove trays from oven and fill each window in cookies with a few of the same coloured lollies. Bake a further 5 minutes and cool cookies on trays.

These cookies are very nice to trim the tree and extremely good to eat, they swill wrap your tree in a cloud of sweet vanilla! With these ingredients I made four batches of cookies, enough to decorate Rockfeller Centre Christmas Tree!

Spiced Short Pastry cookies

This is the same recipe I posted here, without baking powder but with one full tablespoon of mixed spices: ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg… choose what you prefer, they will have a fragrance so strong to inebriate all Christmas crib characters.

Cover and refrigerate dough 30 minutes. Roll dough between sheets of baking papet to 5mm thickness. I divided the dough into 3 parts. Cut shapes from dough using cookie cutter and bake 20 minutes in preheated oven to 180°C. Let them cool and decorate with icing. This is my recipe for the icing:

Ingredients:

• albumen, 1
• lemon juice, few drops (4 – 5)
• icing sugar, about 250 gr

Beat albumen with a fork until it gets frothy, then add lemon juice.  Add gradually icing sugar until the icing is smooth, white and  silky. Add a few drops of food colours and use the icing to decorate cookies. Use sparkling sugar to decorate, too.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Christmas cookies, III episode

You should be interested also in:

1. Cookies: Christmas reharsal
2. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: cavallucci, typical Tuscan Christmas cookies
3. Gifts, Christmas swaps and short pastry citrus cookies

Just to give an hint about tomorrow’s recipe!!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Teasing

In Italy the 8th of December is an holiday dedicated to Saint Mary, when usually we trim the tree and we start making Christmas cookies… as every year, the house is full of cinnamon, aniseed and vanilla smells! Tuscan cookies are not nice to see nor colourfull, cool or chic… they’re round, a bit flat on the edge and dusted with flour. When I was young, mum used to bring home a white paper bag from San Gimignano, full of cavallucci, a gift from my Grandad for his niece.

Each time I eat those cookies, they remind me of Grandad. They are very similar: rustic and bashful on the outside, but sweet and flavourl inside, full of delicious ingredients and spices.

You can find tons of cavallucci recipes, but if you want to make really good cavallucci, there is just one way to have them: choose your favourite traditional shop, one of those that sell sweets, coffee and candies, go next to the counter with a suspicious look and whisper to the seller: can you give me the ingredients for half a kilo of cantuccini? The man will turn his back and fill small paper bags with candied fruits and spices, then he will put all the ingredients together in a bigger bag, he will close seal it and he will undoubtedly say: this is the one and only recipe, the right one, you’ll see what a masterpice they will be, I’m sure we will see again before Christmas because you’ll be searching again for those ingredients, I bet!

And I’ll be back to this shop, my cantuccini have let my aunt without words, they’re super, amazing, awful!

::::: CAVALLUCCI – TUSCAN CHRISTMAS COOKIES :::::

Ingredients:

• plain flour, 650 gr
• sugar, 350 gr
• icing sugar, 30 gr
• shelled walnuts, 200 gr
• candied fruit, 90 gr (orange, lemon, citron)
• baking ammonia, 15 gr
• water, 170 gr
• cavallucci spices, 15 gr (cinnamon,coriander, nutmeg and aniseed, ground and mixed).

Chop roughly walnuts and add candied fruits, icing sugar, spices and ammoniaca: use your hands to mix all the ingredients. Add flour and mix again.

In a separate pot add sugar and water and melt sugar on a low heat: pay attention! Don’t let the sugar candy, otherwise you’ll have cavallucci way too hard, and you’ll need titanium teeth to chew them!

When sugar has melted, pour it over the other ingredients and mix throughly with the help of a wooden spoon. Make thick rolls (about 5cm of width) and cut them into slices. I made about 40 slices: knead them again, make small balls and slightly flat them pressing each ball with your thumb. Put them in a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake them for not more than 15 minutes in preheated oven to 180°C. Let them cool completely.

A strong ammonia smell is totally normal: when you’ll eat cavallucci, once cooled completely or better the day after, it will be completely disappeared and those Tuscan cookies will be crunchy on the outside and sweet and soft inside, with a million of flavours thet will exalt eachother.

I partecipate with this recipe to the virtual cookie swap held by Jennie’s Kitchen:

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: cavallucci, typical Tuscan Christmas cookies

You should be interested also in:

1. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: Prato Cookies
2. Christmas cookies, III episode
3. Cookies: Christmas reharsal

Here I am after 2 days of work in Spello, Umbria: it’s amazing! As soon as my brand new car will arrive, I’ll put on a Bruce Springsteen cd and I’ll drive my Kia car towards Umbria, to discover old medioeval villages covered with fog and new delicious dishes. I bought  grass-peas: any suggestions on how to cook them?

Today was the first of three days off work, so I decided to make some Christmas reharsals, baking my first Christmas cookies, which contributed to make an happy tea time. The other goal was ti read until the last page my Cecilia Ahern book: so, don’t expect a long post, I must discover the mystery behind the castle!

Let me introduce you a new short pastry that comes directly from my last cooking lesson. I was sceptical at first, as my short pastry ingredients were different and I was fond of the result, since it was my warhorse! Howhever, you really must give a chance to this short pastry: it’s amazing, friable and your cookies will remain fresh and fragrant for days, if kept in an airtight container.

Ingredients:

• flour, 500 gr
• softened butter, 200 gr
• sugar, 200 gr
• baking powder, 15 gr
• grated orange peel
• egs, 2
• salt, 1 pinch

Put flour onto a flat surface and make a well in the middle. Crack eggs open into the flour and sieve sugar, baking powder and grated orange peel. Add a pinch of salt and diced softened butter. You need now cold hands or an iron spatula. Crumble all the ingredients and mix them well to make a compact dough.

I made three kinds of cookies: one with ground nutmeg, cinnamon and Tonka bean, one with dessiccated coconut and one with Nutella inside.

Sorry to leave you now, I must finish my book!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Cookies: Christmas reharsal

You should be interested also in:

1. Christmas cookies, III episode
2. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: cavallucci, typical Tuscan Christmas cookies
3. Gifts, Christmas swaps and short pastry citrus cookies

I’ve already told you everything about my Scottish holidays, but it was time to show you a real Scottish recipe. It is a real Scottish dish, as written Scottish Cookery by Margaret Fairlie. Just a note. When you buy shortbread cookies in airport they’re sold into rectangular boxes with castles and tartan on it and they have a rectangular shape as well. Travelling around Scotland I’ve seen mostly shortbread made in a triangular shape, as a slice of a cake. This is the shape I have chosen to bake my cookies.

Shortbread and Black bun are traditionally eaten on  Hogmanay, a celebration which originated in France in the 17th century when the two countries were linked in the ‘auld alliance’. Hogmanay is known in parts of Scotland as Cake day.

Ingredients:

• sieved plain flour, 125 gr
• rice flour, 60 gr
• caster sugar, 60 gr
• butter, 125 gr
• a pinch of salt

Combine flours and sugar and a pinch of salt in a mixing bowl. Work in softened and diced butter until the dough is the consistency of shortcrust. Sprinkle a working surface with rice flour. Turn dough on to board and knead till smooth. Cut into potions and shape rounds. This amount will make four – five small rounds. Cut into 4 slices each round.

Place on baking paper in a baking tin. Prick with a fork. Put in oven at 180°C and cook until cakes begin to colour. Allow to cool in the tin.

TODAY IS A SPECIAL DAY! MY SISTER IS 19!

I’m really proud of you! I still remember when I used to hold you and cuddle you as a young baby, your smell was milk and talcum powder, you were soft and fragile, but in your eyes strength and irony were already burning, such as now, as a young woman, strong and brave, confident on your choices and open and curious towards everything that life will offer you! Happy birthday Claudia!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Scotch Shortbread

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If you come to Tuscany, whenever you want, wherever you go, from a city to a little village, you’ll find those typical sweets: Ricciarelli, Panforte and Cantuccini. If Ricciarelli and Panforte are related most of all to Christmas holidays, Cantuccini are a real must, you can eat them in any period of the year as a rapid dessert, with a glass of good vinsanto (sweet white raisin wine).

This is how my Grandma makes them, especially on Sundays when there are uncles, aunts and cousins in the garden to spend some time with us. If you don’t have time to bake a superb cake and fill it up with cream and chocolate, those cookies are incredibly easy to make and delicious.I’m absolutely a teetotaller, so I don’t soak them in vinsanto, but in water! I know, I know, it’s a nonsense… but when I was a child and my uncle used to soak them in vinsanto, I was given a glass of water to dip them. Since then, It is an unique flavour, cosy and comforting. It brings me back to after dinner moments in San Gimignano, when the only problem was to choose in between playing cards with my Grandad and my cousin or reading comics lying on my Aunt’s huge bed.

:::::  CANTUCCINI DI PRATO – PRATO COOKIES :::::

Ingredients for a whole trayful of cookies:

• Plain flour, 500 gr
• Caster sugar, 500 gr
• Sweet almonds, 200 gr
• Eggs, 4
• Salt

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Toast almonds in a baking-tin in the oven for some minutes or until they are fragrant and golden. Then set aside to cool, peel them and chop them up.

Put flour on a flat surface and make a well in the middle, adding sugar, chopped almonds, a pinch of salt and eggs.

Work the mixture until you have a smooth and soft dough. Divide the dough into equal parts, form flattened thin loafs, 10 cm wide.  Place them on a baking tray lined with greasproof paper and bake them for about 25 minutes, until lightly browned. Remove from oven and set aside to cool for a few minutes.

Slice slantwise into 1,5 – 2 cm slices and bake the cookies again, returning to the oven for a while, until they are toasted. Then remove from oven and let cool. Store at room temperature in an airtight tin.

GREAT NEWS! today I’m really happy, finally Basil, an american web magazine, is on line! Have a look at my monthly column, obviously dedicated to Tuscan Cooking!  Tuscany Home Sweet Home… doesn’t it remind you anything? can I indulge in pride and satisfaction for today? Com’on, just for one day!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: Prato Cookies

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1. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: cavallucci, typical Tuscan Christmas cookies
2. Ricciarelli, Siena’s almond cookies
3. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: grape ‘schiacciata’

Ingredients for 20ish cookies:

• flour, 150 gr
• brown sugar, 50 gr
• demi-sel butter, 100 gr (I didn’t have this kind of butter, so I used unsalted butter and a teaspoon of salt)
• milk, 5 tablespoons
• herb tea, 2 tablespoons (I mean flowers and leaves herb tea, not just the liquid)

Bring the milk to a simmer, remove from the heat and add herbal tea: leave to draw for 15 minutes.
In a bowl, mix flour and brown sugar, add diced softened butter and mix with your fingers.
Strain the milk and add it to the mixture, knead it until you have a round and homogeneous mixture.
Leave to cool in the fridge for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven at 165°C, roll the dough and cut it into 3×5 cm cookies, at least 1 cm thick. Put the cookies into a baking tin with greased paper.
Sprinkle the shortbreads with brown sugar and bake them for 15 minutes, until slightly golden. You can keep them for some days – if you can resist to the temptation to eat them!

I take part with this recipe to Genny’s contest Ci mangiamo una tisana?

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Flowers in a shortbread!

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1. Scotch Shortbread
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Sunday it’s the familiy day: usually my uncles come to visit, but today was a special day… the cousins were coming too!In the living room, with the fireplace, we were more or less twenty.I love thise afteroon because I can spend all the morning cooking in the kitchen: we have guests, eh!

Ingredients for the pastry:

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Cinnamon little wheels

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