Delicious stuffed Pistachios Cookies with Robust flavor of Pistachios and Pistachio Cream: My version

I had tried these cookies many years ago,  at one of our friend's for her baby shower.  Her aunt had baked these for her shower. These were delicious and I was determined to make these, but never got a chance to make them.  Finally I asked her aunt for the recipe and she gave it to me. Unfortunately I did not have all the ingredients that her recipe called for, her recipe had whipping cream to make the dough and also corn syrup to make the filling, I did not have these items. And to my surprise stores were out of corn syrup, may be because everyone was baking during Christmas. Her recipe did not call for pistachio cream and I am in love with pistachio cream, since I have been making Dubai chocolate. I always keep pistachio cream in my pantry.  So I modified and used Pistachio cream in my recipe. These cookies are soft, chewy, and bursting with nutty flavor. 

 

I must say they came out different but still absolutely delicious.  While her cookies were perfectly round and plump and white with pistachio filling inside, mine were pistachio green in color with pistachio filling with pistachio cream inside. As far as the shape goes, I made a mistake of baking all the cookies at one time so they lost their round shape but they came out different shapes which was not too bad.  This recipe yields 24-26 cookies, but I strongly recommend if you want round shape and slightly plump cookies you may want to make 22 cookies. And also bake them in two batches if 11 or 12 keeping them apart as they do spread during baking. 

Here are the Ingredients I used for dough (outer shell of cookies):

• 4 cups AP flour
• 1 and half cup of soften or melted unsalted butter (three sticks)
• 1/2 cup of Pistachio cream ( according to me it is better to use than cream as it gave cookies unique flavor and color) but if you don't have you can use 1/2 cup of whipping cream.
• 2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 cup of powdered sugar (as pistachio cream is sweet, but if you are using whipping cream you may want to use 1 cup of powdered sugar instead)

For filling of cookies I used following ingredients:

• 2 cups of chopped pistachios (this time I found raw unroasted and unsalted pistachios at Costco. If these are not available you can use the roasted and salted one that you get at Costco)
• 2 tablespoon of unsalted butter at room temperature
• 3 tablespoon of Agave (if using corn syrup you may want to use 4 tablespoon)
• 2 tables spoon of pistachio cream
• Half cup of powdered sugar
• 2 and 1/2 table spoon of rose water if you have it, if not it is ok.

Method to make dough: 

• You will need electric mixture for this.
• In the mixing bowl add melted butter, pistachio paste, followed by flour, vanilla, salt, powdered sugar. 
• Now using electric mixture mix everything until the dough is light and fluffy, it might take 2-3 min.
• Hint: You can add the powdered sugar last this way you can modify the sweetness of dough according to your taste.
• I love the pistachio green color of the dough. 
• Set is aside as you prepare the filling.

Method to make the filling: 

• Chop the pistachios in food processor.
• Add powdered sugar, butter, agave, pistachio cream, and rose syrup.
• Give it another few pulses of food processor blade until everything is well incorporated. 

Putting everything together:

• Line the baking tray with parchment paper.
• Divide the dough in round balls.
• Divide the filling into same number as that of dough.
• Flatten each ball keeping the edges of flattened patty thin,  place the filling in the center, bring the edges together  and roll the ball in round shape in your palm. 
• You may want to flatten the center of ball with your finger and place couple of pistachios in the center on top. 

Baking the cookies:

• Preheat the oven at 360 F degrees but before you place the tray you will turn it down to 350 F degrees
• As I mentioned before for perfect round shape you may want to bake them in two batches.
• Place the tray on top rack, set the timer for 15 min, bake them on top tray for 10 min and then 5 min on second tray.
• Total baking time may vary between 12-15 min at 350 F.
• When you see the edges of cookies turn slight brown take the tray out.

Center of cookies my look underbake but it okay they will continues to set as they cool.

Allow the cookies to  cool completely,  you may sprinkle them with powdered sugar with a sieve like I did, or you can omit this step if you prefer to avoid the messy hands of person enjoying the cookies.

Transfer the cookies on to cooling rack (separate them if they are stuck together)

Enjoy !!

Happy New Year !!  I hope to share and  post many recipes this year and many more years to come.

Recipe modified and adapted by Surekha from a recipe from Sahar, D. 

Photographs by Surekha.

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Mango Mousse with Chili Lime Twist without eggs.

I wanted to take some dessert to one of our girls luncheon, decided to make the Mango Mousse with a twist.  Made chili lime Marie and Butterfly cookies crumble for base and topped with mango mousse and added chili tamarind lime gummy rings, cool whip and mint for garnish.  Since I had to take this to one of our close friends house, I decided to use the Mason jars, but you can use any fancy glasses or cups. You can even make it in a tray and serve it, with desired garnish of fresh mangoes. I only used fresh chopped mango with mango pulp as mangoes were not in season. 

It came out pretty good, except everyone wanted more of the chili lime Marie and Butterfly biscuits (cookies) crumble in between or as a topping, but I did not want to overpower with this and make the mango mousse secondary flavor. However if you like that you can put a layer of crumble in between and may be less in the bottom... You can not go wrong with any of these choices. 

However I had to take this for a get together so I had to make more. This recipe yields about 12 mason jars + two cups and I saved some for my family about 6 x 10 Pyrex glass rectangular pan. You can certainly cut the recipe in half to make less.  Also I used no sugar added mango pulp, but if you use sweetened mango pulp then you may not have to add the agave and powdered sugar in the Mousse, you may just need to sugar for the crumble.

You will need following equipment for this recipe:

• Measuring cups
• Measuring spoons 
• Food processor
• Hand mixer
• Silicone Baking mat and silicone spatula 
• Full sheet pan
• Parchment paper
• Chilled bowl to whip cream
• And Oven of course

Ingredients for Crumble:

• 1 pack of Goya Marie cookies
• 1 pack of Gullon butterfly cookies, (you can  use graham crackers about 15-18 crackers,  if these are not available)
• 3/4 cup of coconut sugar (if not available you can use brown sugar) 
• 8 tablespoon of unsalted butter melted.
• 1 tsp chili powder (or to desired spiciness) 
• 3 tablespoon of Tajin
• 1/2 tsp of crushed cardamom (you don't want to overpower with cardamom flavor)

Ingredients for Mousse:

• 1 chopped ripe mango fresh or frozen and thawed
• Two 29 oz of mango pulp ( I used the unsweetened with no sugar added, available at local Indian grocer, but you can use sweetened one, then you will have put less agave/sugar)
• 4 tablespoon of Agave (3 +1)
• 1 tablespoon of any pepper jelly I used apricot pepper jelly but if you don't have it you can use marmalade. (optional)
• 2 tablespoon of lime juice (1+1)
• 1 pack of cream cheese (I used Neufchatel cheese) 
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2 packs of unflavored gelatin (from the box of Knorr)
• 1/2 cup of water
• 1 carton of Heavy whipping cream 
• 1/2 cup of powdered sugar or to taste

For Garnish:

• Mango tamarind chili gummy rings (which I bought from TJmaxx) You can use just the crumble for garnish with fresh ripe mango slices or cubes.
• One extra pack of Butterfly cookies (optional) 
• One cup of cool whip thawed in the fridge
• Some fresh mint leaves

Method: 

• To make crumble preheat the oven at 350 F and just before putting the crumble decreased the temp to 325F
• Line the baking sheet with silicone mat and parchment paper.
• Add the both Marie and butterfly cookies or biscuits to food processor with chili powder, cardamom, Tajin and coconut sugar or brown sugar.
• Pulse it till it becomes coarse crumb like texture.
• Add butter and pulse it again until everything is well incorporated.
• Dump the mixture on prepped baking sheet, spread it evenly and bake it for 10 min at 325 until golden brown (in between you can mix the crumb so it is browned evenly)
• Set aside to cook completely.

Method to make the Mousse:

• Clean out the food processor bowl
• Add fresh cut or frozen pieces of ripe mango, and one table spoon of lime juice, puree until smooth. 
• Add one can of  mango pulp or puree and pulse it till it is smooth.
• Add cream cheese, sour cream, three table spoons of agave and pulse until everything is nice and smooth texture.
• Add the pepper jelly or marmalade and pulse it again till everything is smooth.
• Set this mixture aside. 
• Take 1/2 cup of water in microwave safe bowl and sprinkle the gelatin powder evenly over water, let it stand for 3-5 min until spongy, then microwave it for at 10 sec interval and mix in between until gelatin is dissolved completely with no lumps.
• In a separate bowl dump the other can of mango pulp or puree.
• Add gelatin to this mix well.

• Add one table spoon of lime juice and one tablespoon of agave to this pulp, mix well.
• Now beat the whipping cream with hand mixer in chilled bowl until it stiffens to peak.
• Add the mango pulp with gelatin and mango mixture from food processor with cream cheese and sour cream to the whipped cream.
• Fold the mixture until everything is just combined, do not over mix it. Use as  few movement with silicone spatula as possible to bring the mix together.

To assemble:

• Divide the crumble evenly in the mason jars (this recipe yielded 12 mason jar, 2 serving cups and like I mentioned earlier, I saved the extra crumbles for 6 x 10 glass pan.  
• Top it with even amount of mango mousse and remaining one pour it over the crumble in the glass pan.
• Chill it in fridge for at least 4 hours.
• Garnish with one teaspoon of thawed cool whip,  chili mango rings, butterfly cookies and mint leaves.
• I had to chill it garnished but the the chili mango ring became chewy, so wait until last minute to add these.

Enjoy !!

Recipe and Photographs by Surekha.

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