Hello and thank you for being here! If you haven’t already now is the time to upgrade your subscription to paid. You’ll receive an exclusive recipe every week and you’ll get access to the full archive which includes over 100 thoroughly tested recipes and you’ll be helping to support me 🩷. Plus this month you’ll receive daily recipes as a part of my recipe advent calendar!
To upgrade your subscription hit the button below and join me for more cakey fun!
Hello and welcome to day 16 of the recipe advent calendar! Today we’ve got a double whammy recipe: Pistachio & Cardamom Crinkle Cookies and homemade pistachio spread.
The pistachio crinkles are very similar to soft amaretti biscuits but I was too scared to call them pistachio amaretti and take the risk of angry Italian purists showing up in my DMs! They have a lovely soft, chewy texture and are delicious on their own, but if you want them to be extra pistachio-y, you can fill them with pistachio spread. I love the combination of pistachio and cardamom but if you’re not a fan you can just leave it out or replace it with a tough of vanilla.
I’ve included a recipe for homemade sweetened pistachio spread, unlike store-bought, it actually tastes like pistachios. You can use it however you like - on toast, as a filling for cakes and biscuits, or just eaten by the spoonful. You get the idea!
Pistachio Spread
Ingredients - makes 2 x 200ml jars
250g pistachios
40g pistachio oil/neutral oil
150g white chocolate
50g icing sugar
1/4tsp salt
Oil based blue food colouring (optional)
Method
Preheat the oven to 170°C(fan)/340°F.
Spread the pistachios on a baking tray and roast for 10-15 minutes, we want them lightly golden brown but retaining a little bit of the natural green colour.
Once roasted, transfer the pistachios to a food processor or blender and blend until finely ground.
Add the oil and continue to blend until a paste forms.
Add the chocolate. You don’t need to melt it first - the warmth produced by the blender melts it as it blends.
Blend until completely smooth, this might take a while, if your blender is getting too warm, turn it off and give it a rest for 30 minutes before continuing.
Taste your paste before adding the salt and icing sugar - it might be sweet enough for you, these are just the quantities that I like.
Add the sugar and salt and taste again, adjust if needed.
Add a tiny bit of oil based blue food colouring. Because we’re using roasted pistachios, they lose some of their lovely green colour, adding a tiny bit of blue food colouring helps to balance out the brown and bring a bit of green back. If you don’t like food colouring just skip this step!