Orange-Almond Tuiles # French Fridays with Dorie

I have to say, Orange-Almond Tuiles are one of the most elegant tea-time cookies I have ever tasted..

I got introduced to Tuiles recently and was pretty excited about baking them for French Fridays with Dorie. Though a little delicate and somewhat finicky, tuiles are always a delight to serve with tea. In the past I have tried Dorie's Translucent Maple Syrup tuiles and until Friday we thought that those are the best cookies we've ever had. But these tuiles are even better. They were simply delicious. Even the little one couldn't stop at one.

Chickpea almond chocochip cookie dough bites..

You might have noticed that for the past two weeks I have not been posting my cake for the week. well that is because I have not been baking any.  over the last month or so I have put on a LOT of weight and i figured its time to cut down on the sugary treats. however since I love something sweet with my cup of morning tea, last week i decided to bake these healthy chickpea and peanut butter cookie dough bites from Texanerian Baking that I had bookmarked. but since there wasn't enough peanut butter in stock I substituted it with blanched almonds. the result was pretty good. can't call these cookies addictive because these are quite filling and you really cannot have more than one at a go. in fact if you are not a big eater, a single cookie with a glass of cold milk is good enough to take care of your breakfast, which might be a good thing if you are dieting. 

now here's how i made these grain-free cookie dough bites...

Chickpea Almond Chocochip Cookie Dough Bites

ingredients

• 11/4 cup boiled chickpeas
• 1/2 cup blanched almonds
• 2 tsps vanilla essence
• 1 tsps baking powder
• 1/4 tsp pinch of salt
• 1/8 cup honey
• 1/2 cup chocochips

what i did

• first i preheated the oven to 350 degrees F. 
• i then coarsely ground the almonds the in the blender. then adding all the ingredients except the chocochips to the ground almonds i blended the mixture until all the ingredients were well-combined.
• then removing the mixture from the blender i added the chocochips to the dough and shaping them into little patties placed them on a baking tray and baked for 10 minutes in the preheated oven.
• when i took the cookies out of the oven the surface facing up looked cracked.  so i left the cookies  out for about 5 minutes and then flipped each cookie and baked for another 4 minutes. 

thats it ! a batch of 11 healthy breakfast cookie dough bites were ready to serve !

As this recipe includes chickpeas, I am linking it to the 60th edition of My Legume Love Affair, a food event that was created by Susan  of  The Well Seasoned Cook and is presently managed by Lisa of Lisa's Kitchen. This month Nupur of One Hot Stove is hosting the event. 

  

also since these have been made from the scratch, I am sharing them at Made with Love Monday, a event hosted by Javelin Warriors of Javelin Warrior's Cooking w/Luv.

Love my Oatcakes Green and fruity sometimes..

Sometime back I had pinned two recipes from Confessions of an Overworked Mom which i thought would complement each other well for a weekend breakfast. Irish Oatcakes and Strawberry butter. but as i was measuring out the oats for the oatcakes i decided to add in some more flavors to it. so in went some thawed fenugreek leaves and some crushed garlic. sure enough the end result wasn't very Irish but they were so perfect for a light Saturday brunch of fenugreek oatcakes  and yogurt..

in case you are interested, this is how i made these fenugreek oatcakes.....

ingredients

¾ cup oatmeal (not instant)
¼ cup whole wheat flour 

½ cup frozen fenugreek leaves, thawed

1 tablespoon oil
2-3 tablespoons of warm water
¾ tsp salt

what i did

• i mixed all the ingredients together and kneaded them till they formed a dough soft enough to work with.
• once the dough was formed, i wrapped it in a cotton cloth and kept it aside to rest for 10-15 minutes.
• after that i rolled the dough out on a floured cutting board about ¼ inch thick and cut out triangle shaped pieces of the oatcake.
• i then cooked these triangles on the griddle pan until both sides became golden brown. then served them with a light spread of butter on one side.

next i wanted to bake my oatcakes instead of cooking them on the griddle pan. and that led me to this recipe of Nutty oatcakes. here again i thought it would be nice to add in some grated fruits in the dough. so in went some grated apples. the result was nice. but unlike the oatcakes cooked on griddle, the baked ones had the texture of crackers. they tasted good. and i quite enjoyed them with the peach butter that i had made to go with it. however Mr MN did not like it much. said it was ok and did not go for a second one. and for baby MN these were far too hard. so will i can these again. mostly likely i will .... when i am in the mood for a quick cracker with my afternoon tea...

Recipe for Apple and Walnut Oatcakes

½ cup whole wheat flour

⅓ cup coarsely ground walnuts
½ cup grated apple
¼ teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon oil
¼ teaspoon salt
2-3 tablespoons of warm water

what i did

i preheated the oven to 350 degrees F, kept a dry baking sheet ready, then sifted the flour, baking powder and salt together and kept it aside. then i repeated the first three steps of the fenugreek oatcake recipe and finally put the cut out triangles in the prepared baking sheet and baked them for 15-18 minutes.

while the oatcakes were baking i busied myself into making the peach butter. for this i almost followed the recipe of the Apricot Cashew Butter, except that i substituted the apricots with peaches, cashews with almonds and added a bit of butter and orange zest for smell and flavor. so my end result wasn't vegan. but it did taste good.

Peach Almond Butter
ingredients
2 fresh peaches, peeled and diced
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 cup water
½ cup raisins
½ cup almond, ground (i ground them in my coffee grinder)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
pinch of orange zest

what i did

i simmered the diced peaches, along with the sugar in 1/2 cup of the water till almost all the water evaporated. while the peaches were cooking, i covered the raisins in warm water and left them to become plump, about 10-15 minutes. once that was done, i put all the ingredients along with the cooked peaches and plumped raisins into the blender and pureed it till it it attained a smooth butter like consistency. and once the oatcakes were baked and cooled i dipped them in this butter and enjoyed it with my tea.

Tuesday Frugal Tip @ Learning the Frugal Life

The Bulletin Board @ Mrs Happy Homemaker, Marvelous Mondays @ This Gal Cooks

Recipe Sharing Monday @ Jam Hands, Mealtime Monday @ Couponing & Cooking 

Mop it up Monday @ I should be Mopping the Floor
Meatless Monday: Meatless Monday @Veggie Mama's ,  Meatless Monday My Sweet and Savory

Tuesday Food:  Hearth & Soul Blog Hop @ Premeditated Leftovers
Tempt my Tummy @Blessed with GraceTotally , Tasteful Tuesday Party @ Nap Time Creations Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays @ SS& GS, Share it Link Party @ Winthrop Chronicles
Wednesday Food:  What's Cooking Wednesday @ Confessions of Overworked Mom
Wholesome Foods Wednesday @ This Chick Can Cook,  Fresh Foods Wednesdays @ Gastronomical Sovereignty
Show and Share @ Semi Homemade Mom,  Seasonal Celebration @ Natural Mother's Network

Taralli Dolce nidi con Mandorla Uovo di Pasqua (Sweet Taralli nest with Almond Easter Eggs)

It was Simply Food's event  Flavors of Italy  hosted at Divya's Culinary Journey that got me addicted to Italian cooking... and for the past one and a half months whenever i have been in the mood for something special I have wandered the Italian route.. so naturally for Easter  I wanted to cook/bake  something Italiano. and my search yielded a cookie and a cake, two sweet recipes that i really wanted to try. the first one was Taralli Dolci di Pasqua and I'll tell you more about the second once its baked...

Back in February I had baked a version of Sweet Taralli. It was without eggs and it had tasted nice and delicate. but the techniques involved in making those were slightly different. For instance, that recipe did not call for boiling the dough before baking it. so i was keen to try this version out just to see how different these taste... and what i found was that, taste-wise the two do not strike any resemblance. the textures are completely different. the merely baked ones are more cookie like, while this one has a different but lovely texture all together. something that you'll love with your afternoon tea or coffee.. 

Though I usually tend to use egg substitutes in baking, for this set of Taralli I simply followed the ingredient list. Because a note following the recipe said, "eggs are a symbol of fertility and rebirth and so are often present in Easter feast day dishes" and it felt wrong to meddle with the symbolic traditions. and I am actually glad that i did that. the only place where i wandered away from the recipe was in including some fennel seeds in the dough and shaping the Taralli. The fennel seeds were actually a nice touch but I wish I would have followed the instructions for shaping the Taralli. For after boiling some of my Taralli cookies looked pretty deformed, something that you might want to avoid.  

Now over to the recipe of Taralli Dolce nidi con Mandorla Uovo di Pasqua and some snaps that I hope will tempt you to try these out sometime soon....

Adapted Recipe of Taralli Dolci is from here. 

ingredients

3 cups all purpose flour 

1 teaspoons baking powder 

1/4 teaspoon salt 
3 large eggs 

1/8 cup extra-virgin olive oil 

1/8 cup Cooking Marsala Wine
1/2 cup sugar 
2 tablespoons of Fennel Seeds

for the lemon glaze

1 cup confectioner's sugar

2 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

what i did

• Along with the baking powder and salt, I sifted the flour and kept the mixture aside on a dinner plate.
• then in a glass bowl I began beating the eggs. 
• next i added the oil to it and whisked the 2  together.
• after the eggs and the oil was well combined I added the Marsala Cooking Wine and whisked some more. 
• i then added the sugar and fennel seeds to the liquid mixture and whisked.
• once all the ingredients in the bowl were well combined i gradually folded in the flour a little bit at a time. when the mixture became more dough-like i transferred it to the plate containing the rest of the flour and gradually kneaded it in. I then continued kneading the dough until it was smooth. the recipe asked to knead until the dough was smooth and shiny.. but even after kneading for quite sometime my dough did not look very shiny. so i assumed that the dough should look as "shiny" as mine did and proceeded to the next step, which was to shape the dough into a log, wrap the log in a plastic wrap, place it in a container and let the container rest at room temperature for an hour covered it with a towel.
• after an hour, i boiled a large pan of water , removed the dough from the container, placed it on my wooden dicing board and cut out 1/2 thick slices of the log. then rolling the dough on the floured wooden board i made long ropes of different thickness. and after shaping the ropes into circles by pinching the ends, i placed 3 taralli  at a time in the boiling pan of water.
• once the taralli floated up to the surface of the water, i removed them and placed them in a tray while i dropped in another 3 taralli loops in the boiling water and continued the process till all the taralli were boiled. i then moved the boiled sweet taralli into a dry tray and let them air-dry over night. at this point the boiled taralli looked like this...

• next morning, i preheated the oven to 375 degree F, and in a well greased baking sheet baked the sweet taralli for 25-27 minutes, until they were golden brown. and after cooling them on the baking sheets for a while, when i served the taralli on the table they looked like this..

• since Mr MN wanted them a little sweeter, so later that day I made a lemon glaze combining the listed ingredients and dipped one side of the Taralli in the glaze and set them to dry for half an hour before chomping one in :)

notes and confessions.

• in the recipe they had asked to roll the dough slices into 3/4 inch thick, 9 inch long ropes. but i thought deviating a bit would not matter so i did.  but it mattered. so if you are planning to make these try sticking with the recipe at this point.
• according to the recipe it is sufficient to leave the boiled taralli to air-dry for an hour before baking them. but since it was late and the recipe gave the option of leaving them to air-dry over night I grabbed the later.
• well, i told you that i liked the fennel seeds in it. but Mr MN thought otherwise. so you can reduce the amount you put or opt it out if you like. some versions of sweet taralli include it and while others don't. so its up to you whether or not the include the fennel seeds.

the Almond Easter eggs..
the almond eggs were an afterthought to make up for the appearance of the Sweet taralli. but they turned out quite well.. so if you like, you can quickly whip up some of these to fill up some tiny gaps in your Easter table... i am sure your family and friends will enjoy these very much..

ingredients
30 Almonds

1/4 cup Nestle Premier White Morsels 

2 tablespoons confectioner's sugar

2 tablespoons of milk

1/3 cup coconut powder 
food coloring (1 used Wilton's blue, red and green Icing colors)

what i did
first of all i spread the coconut powder on a quarter plate and microwaved the morsels along the sugar and milk for 40 seconds. then stirred it with a spoon to make a smooth paste of the morsels, divided the paste into 3 small bowls and added the 1 icing color in each bowl with a toothpick. once the color was uniformly mixed in the morsel paste, i allowed the paste to rest on the counter for about 10-15 minutes. after that i dipped the almonds in them and scooping the color coated almonds with a spoon, put them on the plate with coconut powder. since it was not easy to dredge the coated almonds with the coconut powder immediately, i let them rest on the plate for about 5-7 minutes before rolling them over in the coconut powder and shaping them like eggs. After all the almonds were coated with morsel paste, dredged in coconut powder and shaped like eggs, i let them rest on a plate till they hardened (about 30 minutes) and were ready to be popped in ! 

Hope you enjoyed both recipes as much as i enjoyed presenting them for you... do fill me up with your notes and suggestions. i'll love to hear.

Happy Baking and take care...