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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