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...

Marsala Wine Valentine Taralli

A few days back i happened to stumble upon the cooking event "Flavors of Italy for the month of February" at Divya's Culinary Journey and got all charged up. you see other than pizza, pasta, lasagna, gelato and biscotti... my knowledge about Italian cuisine is limited. so i saw this event as an opportunity to  explore the unknown terrains.. and though i consult the internet for every new dish i try... for this event i decided to cook from the book.  that led me to the culinary aisle of our local library where amongst all other books on Italian culinary i picked up Lucinda's Rustic Italian Kitchen. well my choice of the book was determined by two things... 

one. it wasn't as fat as most others in the rack... 

two. because somehow rustic appeals to me much more than fine dining... 

The book with its little introductory anecdotes before each recipe is a nice read by itself. the style of cooking she mentions is very simple and non-intimidating. so after a quick browse... i decided on a few dishes that i would  like to try.. and Marsala Wine Taralli happened to be one of the firsts.

According to the chef Lucinda Scala Quinn, Taralli were typically a savory cookies which varied from  region to region and were often enjoyed with wine. Apparently some recipes of Taralli called for briefly boiling the dough before baking them. However the recipe in the book is simple and straight-forward and only involves kneading the dough, looping the dough and baking them. She says that her recipe was passed down to her from her Great Aunt Lina (Carolina Scala)... and this recipe yields taralli which are quite different from the ones she had had in Italy. 

While I tried to stay faithful to the book as much as possible there were some changes i made here and there. the chef uses eggs in her recipe. but since we are not too fond of the eggy smell so i made an eggless version. also because I could not get Marsala wine, I used the cooking Marsala wine that was available at the neighborhood  grocery store. I guess the substitutions might have meddled with the authentic taste of these cookies... but since i have not tasted the real thing.. i cannot say.  we however liked the version we had in hand. in fact Nishi and i popped in a few even before they were glazed because they were just so good.. not too sweet... not too hard.. something similar in taste to Starbucks madeleine..but slightly harder in texture. the other liberty that I took with the recipe was in shaping my loops like hearts, x's and o's.. but then it is the 14th of Feb. you can't blame me for that.

in  the book, the chef mentions that these cookies were her dad's favorite and he recalls them with a thin lemon glaze which she hadn't found in her Grandmother's files but had incorporated in her recipe.  however since i realized late at night that i had run out of lemons so i created two alternative glazes both of which tasted good... but as i said... these cookies are lovely just by themselves...

Recipe adapted from Lucinda's Rustic Italian Kitchen. 

ingredients :

for the cookies

1 7/8 cups all purpose flour*

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup olive oil

1/3 cup Marsala Cooking wine

paste of 1 tablespoon cornstarch + 2 tablespoon water (substitute for 1 egg)

for the Marsala wine -honey glaze :

1/2 cup confectioners sugar

2 tablespoons of Marsala cooking wine

1 1/2 tablespoon of honey

for the white grape juice glaze :

1/8 cup confectioners sugar

2 teaspoons white grape juice

1 teaspoon of milk

what i did : 

I started by preheating the oven to 375 degrees F and lining 2 baking trays with parchment paper.

For the cookies I combined the flour, baking powder and salt and sifted the mixture. In a separate bowl I whisked together the sugar, wine, olive oil and cornstarch paste, adding them in the order mentioned. I

then i folded in the flour mixture until well combined and kneaded it slightly until the dough was easy to handle and medium-soft.*(see my notes).

Next, using my hands I rolled the dough into cigar-like rolls and shaped them into heart-loops and x-o s like this....

then placed them on the prepared baking trays and baked the cookies until slightly golden, about 17 to 20 minutes.

For both the glazes i simply whisked the ingredients together. and after cooling the cookies overnight, i dipped them into the glaze coating both sides and let the glaze settle on the cookies in the refrigerator for about 6 hours. **(see my notes).

notes: 

*initially i had sized down all the ingredients to 2/3 of what the recipe in the book said. by that calculation i started off with 2 cups of all purpose flour and the rest of the ingredients as stated above. but while kneading i felt that the dough was becoming tough while 1/8 cup of the sifted ingredients were still to be kneaded in. so i left it like that. while writing down the recipe i realized that while i had sized down the quantity of all-purpose flour I had not done the same for the rest of the dry ingredients. if you try this recipe you might want to size those down slightly.

**as you can see here, the original recipe says that the icing should be of the consistency of thick whipping cream. since I had used only 1/2 cup instead of 1 cup sugar mine was not so thick. however we liked the mild sweetness that it rendered.

i should also mention here that my choice of alternative glazes was determined by this piece on the internet that i found while looking for non-alcoholic substitutes for Marsala Wine. 

so that was that.... if you stop by do fill me with your comments and thoughts. I'll love to hear.. till then

Happy Baking and happy Valentine's day !!

Sending this to

"Flavors of Series 4 around Europe" by simply.food hosted at Divya's Culinary Jouney

Vardhini's event Bake Fest # 16-Cooks Joy hosted by Surabhi of  My Cook Book 

Vardhini's event  Sweet Luv 2013: Event Announcement (CJ #4) at Cooks Joy

Bon Vivant #12 - Quixotic Fixes at Summee's Culinary Bites

Cook like a Celebrity Chef at Food Corner

Chocolat à Gingembre Tartelettes

yesterday.. with all that snow and breeze... all i yearned for all day was... something sweet... something spicy.. something gingery yet gorgeously chocolaty ... so at lunch time... i googled and rampaged the internet in search of that perfect recipe for me... while gingersnap cookies and dark chocolate tart with gingersnap crust were close contenders... by themselves,  they weren't enough. i wanted more. wanted them both all at once.. in a bite... so after returning home i set out to tweak the two and mix-and-match their recipes to create  my own chocolaty-gingery-deliciousness... Chocolat à Gingembre Tartelettes, that is Chocolate in Ginger Tartlets.   the name was an afterthought. after the first bite i was convinced that i had tasted something awesome.. something that demanded a better name than chocolate in ginger tartlets.. so i googled a little more and decided on naming my dessert after a close cousin of it... Tartelettes au Chocolat et Gingembre Confit...

okay.. so with all that exuberance you must have realized by now how happy this dessert made me....  Nishi LOVED it and so did my little one... since we could not resist the sight of chocolate, we had it for breakfast this morning and were absolutely delighted. ... the heat of the ginger balanced out the bitter sweetness of the coffee and chocolates so..oo  well. whats more... the chocolate filling in the tarts  is devoid of any cream or butter. pureed tofu does the work instead while assuring your taste buds all along that they are having nothing but the best...  also, with that added touch Nuttela, I am certain that these tartlets will be a party-winner everytime.... irrespective of whether it is a party for kids or grownups... 

ingredients:

for the tart shells: (using the proportions below i made 15 gingersnap cookies and 6 tart shells)

3/8 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white granulated sugar

1/4 cup unsulphured molasses

1/4 cup cup pureed tofu(i used 7oz lite firm tofu pureed with 1/4 cup applesauce)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 2/3 cups + 6 tablespoon all-purpose-flour

1/3 cup oats flour (i ground old fashioned oats)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 inch ginger freshly grated

7 cloves ground 

for the chocolate filling : (the proportions given here filled the 6 tart shells to the brim)

1/4 cup semi-sweet choco chips

1/2 cup pureed tofu(i used 7oz lite firm tofu pureed with 1/4 cup applesauce)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1/8 cup espresso 

3 tablespoon Nutella (Chocolate Hazelnut Spread)

for garnish:

4 almonds grated

3 almonds chopped lengthwise in half

6 raisins chopped in halves.

what i did: 

For the ginger shells, I sifted all the dry ingredients together and kept the mixture aside. Next, I whisked both the sugars and molasses along with butter until the mixture looked smooth and uniform. to this, i then added the pureed tofu, vinegar and grated ginger and beat the mixture some more. finally i folded in the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, 1/4 cup at a time. after a while when the mixture became dough-like and tough to whisk, i kneaded in the remaining dry ingredients into it. then i let the prepared dough rest for about 30 minutes on the kitchen counter.

In the meantime, I  preheated the oven to 350 degrees F; lined a two baking sheets with parchment paper and 6 of a 12 cup muffin tray with paper baking cups and prepared the chocolate filling.

For the chocolate filling, I put the pureed tofu, espresso and vanilla extract in a saucepan and simmered the mixture over low heat for about 3-4 minutes. next i added the semi-sweet chocochips in the mixture  and let it stand for a few minutes until chocolate chips got soft, then i whisked the mixture until it became smooth.  finally i added in the Nutella one tablespoon at a time and stirred some more till the mixture acquired the colour and consistency of chocolate ganache.  

Next, I rolled 15 walnut sized balls and 6 lemon sized balls of the dough. and while i set the walnut sized balls on the baking sheet and put them to bake for 22-25 minutes, i pressed the lemon sized balls against the  walls of the prepared baking cups all the time trying to make sure that the dough walls have an equal thickness on all sides. at this point i also sprinkled some grated almonds into each of the dough shells.

After the first set of ginger cookies were done, I put in the prepared muffin tray into the oven. 25 minutes later when I pulled out the muffin tray from the oven, the "shells" looked somewhat like this...

their centers had puffed up ... but since the gingery bakes were still soft ... so i pressed the center down with a small spoon like this....

and shaped the bakes into gingery tart shells... and this is how the shells looked after being pressed...

I then let the prepared shells rest for a while, about one hour, before pouring the chocolate filling into them. Finally i garnished them with almonds and raisins. and because Valentine's dry is around the corner and I heart my husband and he hearts chocolates, i did one last thing...before putting these chocolate filled ginger shells to refrigerate overnight... I doodled a little chocolate heart on the almond in his tartlet... 

kiddish yet cute... isn't  it :)  

notes and after thoughts

as i mentioned, i adapted the cookie dough recipe from Joy of Baking. There, she tells you to bake the cookies until they are dry and firm on top. That made me bake them for 25 minutes. Though with the added moisture from the chocolate filling, 25 minutes of baking seemed just right for the tart shells, the cookies felt hard. maybe 20-22 minutes of baking time and few hours of cooling would be perfect for the desired snappiness of the cookies. 

since i had not baked eggless gingersnaps before, i set out with a little more ingredients than would be required just for the ginger tart shells. with the extra dough i baked 2 trays of cookies before starting on the  Chocolat à Gingembre Tartelettes. baking the cookies first, helped me decide on how i needed to treat the cookie dough in order to create the ginger shells. 

in the recipe for the chocolate filling i added only 3 tablespoons of Nuttla, because while mixing, that felt very sweet. however it did not seem too sweet after cooling. though the sweetness was perfect for us, if you like your desserts really sweet you can probably add few more spoons of Nuttela in the filling and enjoy the deliciousness....

Happy baking !! and fill me with your notes and comments on this if you stop by... I'll love to hear...

Sending this to 

Thursday's Treasures @ Chocolate, Chocolate & more, Wednesday Extravaganza @ Hunger Little Girl

Vardhini's event Bake Fest # 16-Cooks Joy hosted by Surabhi of  My Cook Book 

Valentine's Day recipe contest- Priya's Versatile Recipes

Bon Vivant #12 - Quixotic Fixes at Summee's Culinary Bites

Healthy Food for Healthy Kids - Event at Nithu's Kitchen

Vardhini's event  Sweet Luv 2013: Event Announcement (CJ #4) at Cooks Joy

Cook like a Celebrity Chef at Food Corner

p.s : Read more:http://www.joyofbaking.com/Gingersnaps.html#ixzz2K5xh4Trw 

White Chocolate Lemon Brownie

i'm two months old in US and being in dearth of a real job i am always on the look out for things to-do to engage myself in those afternoons which seem unbearably long....  so... that is how i chanced upon the recipe cards from Giant Eagle.....

and since it was a friend's birthday..... yesterday i tried out the white chocolate-lemon brownie ..... and believe me they were absolutely YUM !!  soft, moist and chewy....  these brownies were a real treat...   so while i munched on last piece of the brownie i thought i should share the recipe with you all.... just in case you haven't come across it as yet....

Ingredients for the brownies

6 tbsp butter (about 85gms)
11/2(4 oz) bars high quality white chocolate, cut into small pieces (I used Hershey's cookies and cream bar)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2  eggs (i replaced this with 1/2 cup soft tofu pureed)
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp grated lemon jest
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cups flour

White Chocolate Icing:
1/2 (4-oz) high quality white chocolate (/ Hershey's cookies and cream)
3 tsp milk

For the Brownies:

• Preheat oven to 350F /180C. Grease 8x8-inch baking pan with butter.
• Combine 1 bar(4 oz) of white chocolate and butter and microwave for a minute or until the butter has melted.
• In a mixing bowl beat the eggs/tofu and sugar until creamy.(with tofu this was really easy !)
• Beat in the melted chocolate-butter cream into this.
• Next beat in lemon juice, zest and salt to the batter.
• Add flour and  beat until just combined.
• Stir in the remaining 1/2 bar of white chocolate pieces and pour the batter into the greased pan. 
• Bake for 22 to 25 mins. if you are using eggs then you can check the doneness the usual way... i.e a wooden toothpick inserted should come out clean. If you are using tofu then the toothpick inserted should come out with moist crumbs and not clean.
• Remove from pan and let it cool for atleast two hours before you proceed with the icing.

For the icing:

• Break 1/2 bar of white chocolate into small pieces (cutting the pieces with a fork is easy);  add milk to it and microwave for 15seconds. Stir the combination into a smooth paste and pour it over the brownie. Cool completely before cutting them into pieces. 
• And now your brownies are ready to be enjoyed !

Happy Baking !!