I can guarantee you that you will never try any biscotti better than this one.  However this recipe cheats a little bit.  These crisp Italian cookies are traditionally quite dry and and perfect to dip in a hot cafe au lait. But this recipe differs a little bit since the inside of it is a little bit moist. If you would still opt for a drier center, cut each biscotti thinner and leave them in the oven during the second bake for a little bit longer.  So here it goes: my husband’s favourite recipe (from Martha Stewart’s kitchen):

Ingredients:

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temp., plus more for baking sheet

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for baking sheet

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 cup shelled pistachio nuts

1/2 cup chocolate chips

 Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. In an electric mixer cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and beat until well combined. Add flour mixture and stir to form a stiff dough. Preheat oven to 350F. Butter and flour a baking sheet. Stir in pistachios and chocolate chips. Transfer dough to prepared baking sheet and form a slightly flattened log about 12 by 4 inches (I actually made it a little bit longer which made it easier to cut smaller, less breakable biscotties). Bake until slightly firm for about 25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for about 5 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 300F.

On a cutting board, using a serrated knife, cut biscotti diagonally into 1 inch slices or thinner if you want dryer cookies (note: try the 1 inch version first and then, next time, go with the dryer). Arrange biscotti, cut sides down, on baking sheet and bake until crisp but still slightly soft in the middle for about 8 minutes.

They are yummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!

This is by far, one of the best icecreams I have ever tried.  The recipe comes from Epicurious and I did not have to alter anything at all.  It is creamy and tart at the same time and its consistency is great. The recipe calls for thawed frozen passion fruit pulp but I am using fresh pulp. Passion fruits or Maracuya are super seedy and most of the juice is concentrated in the form of a mucus adhered to the seed.  In my version of the icecream, I wanted to leave quite a bit of the black seeds in the yellowish cream not just for contrast but also because I love the idea of chewing crunchy pieces so this is what I did:  I devided the pulp in half.  I left one half with the seeds and I strained the other half to remove the seeds, making sure I pressed the seeds agains the strainer several times to separate the mucus from the seed. The result is an icecream with a great taste but not an overwhelming amount of seeds.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of sugar

3 large eggs

3 cups of heavy cream

1 1/4 cup thawed frozen passion fruit pulp or fresh pulp from the fruit (approx. 4-5 fruits)

Whisk together sugar and eggs. Heat cream over moderate heat until it just reaches a boil, then add hot cream to egg mixture in a slow stream, whisking (to avoid coagulation). Pour custard over sacepan and heat in low, stirring constantly, until it registers 170F on an instant-read thermometer (do not let boil). Pour custard through a fine sieve into a clean bowl and cool completely. Stir in passion fruit pulp and then chill until cold.

 Freeze custard in ice cream maker. Transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden.

Yields: 2 quarts.

Alfajores are a classic in Argentina. I have yet to find an Argentinean who does not love alfajores. And I mean “love” not just “like”.  The problem is that the best ones are processed at factories with God knows which ingredients so they are super tough to replicate.  Alfajores are a kind of wafer sandwich with a rich caramel in the middle and tipically coated in a thin layer of chococolate. For simplicity purposes, I skipped the chocolate coating and simply rolled their sides on coconut.   If you wait one day before you eat them, they taste even better since the humidity of the caramel (dulce de leche) penetrates into the cookies and leaves a faint moisture. Oh, they also freeze very well. To defrost them, simply leave them out of the freezer for 10 minutes.

This recipe is by Blanca Cotta from “Cocina Argentina – Clarin”. To soften the texture of the alfajor, I replaced part of the flour by cornstarch (Maizena).

Ingredients:

1 1/2  cups of all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

5 oz soft unsalted butter

5 oz sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

5 oz chocolate

4 tablespoons of milk

 For the filling: Thick Dulce de leche (caramel)

Note: Since I am not living in Argentina right now, I make my own dulce the leche and it is REALLY GREAT. This I do by pressure cooking a can of sweatened condensed milk. Once the pressure cooker reaches its boiling point and steam comes out of the valve, then it takes 40 minutes. Be careful handling pressure cookers. Only open the can once it is completely cool (refrigerate for extra hardness).

Melt the chocolate with the milk and let it cool.  In a mixer, beat the butter, sugar and vanilla. Add the eggs one by one. In another bowl, sift the flour and the baking powder and then add the flour mixture to the mixer. The original recipe suggests sending the dough wrapped in a plastic film to the refrigerator for 1/2 hour and then roll it with a pin but I found this too hard. So I put the dough in parchment paper and gave it a tube shape (2 inches diameter). I froze the roll overnight and the following day I cut 1/4 inch thick disks. Either butter the pan or use a silpad and send them for 6 to 7 minutes in a 350F oven. Let them cool in the cookie sheet for a couple of minutes and then transfer them to a rack.  Sandwitch them with the caramel and roll the edges over coconut or dip them in chocolate.

Here is a recipe from and advertisement of Glad film paper.  What attracted me to it was the idea of being able to use the herbs from my garden in my baking projects.  When I made this recipe for the first time, the corn flour was a little bit too much and made the cookie super grainy.  Therefore, I tried reducing the amount from 1/2 cup of yellow cornmeal to 1/4 cup and then adding 1/4 cup of rice flour.  I still need to investigate more the uses of rice flour. I know that it does not contain gluten so not much help if you need raising a bake. But have been noticing that whenever I use it, it gives the cookies a nice texture, different from just using 100% of all-purpose flour. Anyway: here is the recipe but beware… this is not a super sweet cookie and it definitely tastes differently due to the rosemary. I wouldn’t kill for it but I do like the exotic flavor

 Ingredients:

2/3 cup of all purpose flour

1/4 cup yellow cornmeal

1/4 cup rice flour

1/2 unsalted butter, softened

pinch of salt

1/2 cup of sugar

1 large egg

2 tblsp finely chopped fresh rosemary

2 tblsp grated lemon zest

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine flour, cornmeal, rice flour and salt in a medium bowl. Beat butter and sugar in a mixer until creamy. Beat in egg, rosemary, lemon zest and vanilla until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low and gradually beat in flour mixture just until combined.  Tear a piece of plastic film and make a 10 x 1.5 inch log with the dough.  Freeze until firm (4 hours or overnight) Cut into 3/8 inch thick slices and place 1 inch apart on cookie sheets. Bake until edges of cookies are lightly golden (15 to 17 minutes) and transfer to wire racks to cool.

I have been long looking for a non-chewy chocolate cookie and after testing a recipe on www.epicurious.com  for “Dark chocolate oatmeal cookies”, I made some modifications and came out with this lovely crisp. Yes… it is a chalky cookie but it is perfect for dipping in milk. I happen to like the combination of pistachios and chocolate since their saltyness accentuates the dark chocolate flavour. But you can omit pistachios or replace them by sliced almonds. So here it goes:

Ingredients:

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 tbsp of oats (I did 3 tbsp instant oats + 1 tbsp hard granola oats or coarser oats)

3 tbsp crashed pistachios

1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350F. Sift first 4 ingredients in a bowl. Beat butter in the bowl of an electric mixer until fluffy. Then add sugar and vanilla. Add flour mixture and beat until moist clumps form. Mix in oats, pistachios and chocolate with spatula until evenly distributed (dough will be very firm).

Using moistened palms, shape 1 generous tablespoon dough into ball. Place on a butter baking sheet (since I wanted to avoid any burnt bottoms, I put one baking sheet on top of the other as if it were one heavy sheet). Form  2 inch round balls and flatten them slightly (not much since the dough does not rise up). Because they break easily when they are ready, I baked them for 12 minutes and then let them rest on the rack for another 5 minutes before I transferred them to a rack.