A Few of My Favourite Things !

I bought the December issue of Bon Appetit before leaving for my Europe trip, with the idea of baking some Christmas cookies for family & friends. I read through the magazine and only ended up ear-marking a single page. This recipe drew my eye each time I flicked through the magazine, the full-page picture showing off the bright green pistachios and ruby red dried raspberries against a pale biscuit, but I just didn’t get the chance to bake before jetting off.

When I finally managed to turn my oven on last weekend, this was the first batch of cookies that went in. Although you need to bake it twice, these are some of the easiest cookies that I’ve ever made. The dough takes all of 5 min to combine before being shaped into 2 logs. The logs are cooled after baking, then sliced and baked again. I used some Pariya semi-dried sour cherries that were a little too alcoholic-tasting to just snack on in place of dried raspberries. These tasted wonderful in the biscotti but they lacked that brightness of colour that would have contrasted so well against the base. Oh yes, I also substituted the coconut extract for the almond extract because I really dislike the flavour of almod extract.

I cannot commend these biscotti highly enough! Definitely my favourite out of the 3 types of cookies that I made this weekend – although the vanilla salted peanut cookies come pretty close. What made them even more incredible was the chocolate that I used to coat them – Callebaut 54% Dark and Valrhona Ivory White. Expensive? Yes, but I think it’s well worth it!

1. Beat sugar, eggs, oil and coconut extract until well blended.
2. Add flour/baking powder/salt mixture and beat until smooth.
3. Stir in pistachios, dried fruit and white chocolate
4. Drpo dough by heaping teaspoonfuls into 2 12-inch long strips on baking sheet and shape with wet fingers into 3-inch wiode log.
5. Bake at 175C for 30 min until lightly browned and firm to touch.
6. Cool logs for 30 min then cut each into 1/2-inch thick slices. Stand upright onto baking sheet, spacking about 1/4-inch apart, and bake for 20 min at 170C.
7. When cool, dip into melted chocolate and chill 30 min until chocolate is set.

 

Okay, I’m still catching up on our holiday adventures!

Instead of busying ourselves with tours of galleries and museums and visiting the Top 10 sites listed in guide books, this time we defiantly struck out in search of new foods to try instead. We visited La Maison du Chocolat, Laduree and Pierre Herme and tasted their intricately-decorated pastries for the first time.

Of the pastries, my personal favourite was probably the Plaisir Sucre for two reasons. One, the sensational chocolatiness minus any cloying sweetness. Two, the construction, as well as the differing textures, of the layers which consisted of a hazelnut dacquoise base topped with a milk chocolate spread, dark chocolate ganache and thin dark chocolate sheet twice over, whipped chocolate cream and finally another thin dark chocolate sheet. Maybe one day I will feel brave enough to try making it at home, as Keiko has done. The Surprise Yu dessert, stewed and raw apples with yuzu with yuzu cream enclosed in meringue and wrapped in orange cellophane, is also pictured here (back) but this really was not to my liking. The other pastry worth mentioning is the Isphahan (not pictured but you can see what it looks like here) from Laduree, fresh raspberries and lychee and rose-flavoured cream sandwiched between pink meringues – unusual and summery flavours.

Of course, we also had to try the much-heard of macarons. We picked a number of flavours from both Pierre Herme and Jean Paul Hevin, but our favourite by far was caramel à la fleur de sel (A: “I would go back to Paris just for these!”). Fortunately, A had the forethought to ask for two of these! The most unusual and strongest flavour was truffe blanche et noisette. Although the earthiness of the truffle flavour was certainly unusual and unexpected in a macaron, it did not prevent us from enjoying it.