Chocolate biscotti

Cantuccini al cioccolato

Those are real bis-cotti, which in Italian means cooked twice.
The inspiration comes from Cantucci, the world wide acclaimed Tuscan biscotti, made with almonds.

Those are a little different, and they probably look like a heresy to Tuscan people ;)

They are part of my hamper for Menu for Hope (read about the whole hamper here).

For around 50 biscotti

200 g flour
60 g cocoa
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon salt
100 g sugar
60 g chocolate chips
3 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
50 g pistachio
50 g pine nuts

Preheat the oven at 180° C.

Mix with a mixer, or by hand, all the ingredients, except pistachio and pine nuts.

Once the mixture is smooth, but still coarse, add, by hand, pistachio and pine nuts.

Dust your hands with flour and form 3-4 sausages 2,5 cm wide and 30 cm long.
Bake for 25 minutes.

Take them out of the oven, and let them rest for 5 minutes, or until you can touch them without burning yourself.

With a jagged knife, cut each sausage in 5 millimeters  thin diagonal slices and arrange them on the baking sheet, well apart.

Bake for another 10-15 minutes.

Let them cool on a rack.

Store in an aright container for up to three weeks.

Cantuccini al cioccolato

Recipe inspired by Hors d’Oeuvres, by Eric Treuille and Victoria Blashford-Snell

Menu for Hope

As last year, and the three years before that, Pim is organized the biggest found rasing of the food blogosphere: Menu for Hope!

Last year we raised more then 100.000 $ for the World Food Program, and this year we would love to raise even more!!!

I decided to put together an Italian & French hamper for this year (code EU16, sent to Europe only), made of:

- homemade dates chutney

- homemade cantuccini (hard cookies, filled with almond and pinenuts)

- Italian traditional torrone

- Marmellata di mandarino tardivo, from Sicily

- Rilettes d’oie façon Landaise (goose paté)

- Terrines de Faisan aux Noisettes (pheasant paté)

- Paté de Campagne, pur porc (porc paté)

- Terrine de Canard aux Cèpes (duck paté with porcini mushrooms)

- 3 spread: Crevettes au Calvados (Calvados shrimp), Thon a l’olive noir (black olive tuna) and Huîtres et Wakamé (oysters and wakame)

And if you are interested, with my Italian blog and altogether with my friend Sara, the host for Europe, we are offering something too:

Milan Walking Tour with Breakfast, Open-air Market, Food Lovers’ Highlights and Aperitivo for 2 people: start your walking tour with a classic Italian breakfast, stroll through an open-air fruit and vegetable market and then head to the historic center of Milan for a traditional Italian aperitivo with a few food lovers’ highlights on the way. Duration: 4-5 hours. Saturday only, or Sunday w/o markets.

Code: EU14

All you have to do is to follow this simple donation Instructions:
1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from our Menu for Hope at http://chezpim.com
2. Go to the donation site at http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhope5 and make a donation.
3. Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. Please specify which prize you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code.
For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02. Please write 2xEU01, 3xEU02
4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.
5. Please allow us to see your email address so that we could contact you in case you win.  Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

Donate! Donate! Donate!!!

Sablée Breton

Sablé Breton de Pierre Hermé

My dear friend Sara organized a wonderful cookies swap to celebrate Christmas!
She invited over some other girls, Italians, Americans, a French girl and we swapped all different kind of cookies.

I brought 3 different kind of cookies: simple Italian cookies in the shape of hearts, cranberries rockies and this sablée Breton.
Sablée Breton are basically made of butter, flour and sugar. But the butter is a special kind of butter: demi-sel, that means salted butter.
Bretagne is very famous for its salted butter, and for its sablée too.
the recipe I used is by the best, the unique, the one and only patissier in the entire world: Pierre Hermé!

For 30 4×4 centimeter square sablée Breton

133 g demi-sel butter, room temperature
60 g sugar
50 g butter, room temperature
1 g fleur de sel (or crashed Maldon salt)
7 g hard boiled egg yolk, room temperature
167 g flour
34 g potato starch

In a mixer bowl, with a paddle attachment, make a paste with demi-sel butter and sugar.
Add the rest of the ingredients in the order stated above and form a smooth bowl.
Let it rest for at least 1 hour in the fridge.

In the mean while, preheat the oven at 170° C.
Lay out the dough, 5 millimeters thin.
Bake for 15 minutes, then cut out 4×4 centimeters squares and bake again for 5 minutes, until golden.

To give a bit of color I added some pistachio nuts before the second bake.

Let them cool completely before serving.

Dates chutney

Chutney di datteri

I had many different kinds of dates around the house!

Let’s state something: I do not like dates! they are too sweet, too soggy…

So dates are something that only my husband eats. And as he doesn’t eat kilos of them, well, we have many around.

The best way I found to get rid of them is chutney. Simple, soothing, satysfing! And perfect with roasted meat!

750 g stoned dates

1 litre white wine vinegar

A piece 5 centimetres long of fresh ginger, finely diced

4 teaspoons salt

3 cloves

4 cardamoms

1/2 teaspoon of ground ginnamon

1/2 teaspoon red chili pepper

200 g sugar

150 g sultanas

Bring vinegar and halved dates to the boil. Cook for 40 minutes, or until dates are tender.

Add sugar, spices, salt and sultanas, and cook for 30 more minutes.

In the meanwhile, half fill jam jars with water, and eat in the microwave, at maximun power, for 10 minutes. Take the jars out, discard the water, dry them with a clean tea towel.

Fill the jars still hot with the hot chutney. Close them and put them upside down to cool.

Let them rest for at least 10 day before opening.

They’ll make a perfect Christmas present :)

I’ve got a new blog :)

Frollini cuoricini

After a long period of thinking I decided to surrender to the urge I felt to write in Italian too!

And here it is, brand new, and growing :)

Mele al forno

Do not worry: I’ll never leave this blog and I’ll keep updating it for ever :)

Mele al forno is actually a project: less personal stuff, more basic recipes. Or at least for now :)

Have fun!

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