Hot Cookie - the Archive

Biscotti di Pinoli go with vino or caffè . The cookie in front is shown bottom side up. Backdrop is a tufa stone wall, common in Civita. Tony, our resident architect here in Civita, is an excellent cook. His kitchen sports two encyclopedic series on Italian cooking I could only wish to find for myself. They are limited editions, and no one in all of Italy seems to be selling theirs. One volume is dedicate d to piccola pasticceria , or small dessert things, which include cookies, tarts, filled eclair-type pastries and fried pastries. Based on the photos, I selected a recipe for Biscotti di Pinoli. My overly wet mixture of almond paste and sugar. Of course, I had to compromise. The recipe called for almond flour; from Seattle I brought almond paste in a can. This almond paste contains some sugar and water, so I was concerned the end product would be too moist. I mixed the almond paste and the sugar with my hands, and unlike their photo of a dry mixture, mine clung together in ...

Lacking my own recipe, I have embarked on a search for a recipe to approximate the nut-covered almond cookies I have found in the best panificio 's. They seem to come in different shapes and rolled with different chopped nuts, but many exude that floral scent of almonds. The panificio in Rome, where Doug and I bought panini for lunch, baked a particularly lovely assortment, all displayed with names of each cookie. Pinolate were covered in pine nuts (pinoli or pignoli). Bocconcini del Nonno are "grandfather's morsels," covered in sliced almonds. Brutti ma Buoni are made with another type of nut meat or flour. I believe the ones we got were made with hazelnuts, but some recipes online call for a mixture of hazelnuts and almonds. The only requirement is that they be brownish and rough textured, enough to be "ugly but good," as their name dictates. See this link for the controversy about how to spell pine nuts in Italian - pinoli vs. pignoli.

Written April 11, 2011 I can't find the recipes I so carefully copied from the Gourmet Cookie Book and thought I'd packed. Neither can I find either planned recipe online. I'll have to email home and see what turns up. Or find a recipe here in an Italian cookbook. Hmm.

Written Sunday, April 10, 2011. Tony shows me around the garden.Our "apartment" is in the tall building in the background. My second suitcase arrived with my gardening clothes and cookie making equipment on Thursday, three days late, after missing the connection in Amsterdam to Rome. (See my April 1 post about how I found myself as a gardener in residence in Civita.) I was reluctant to wear my city shoes into the garden, but the fact was that I had work to do, so city shoes and clothes have been sacrificed. I know this is a cookie making blog, but sometimes cookies have to be set aside. I am here to help an architect care for the garden that helps feed academic fellows who come to this small architecture institute . Tony, the architect on site, has been working this garden for years, and I am careful to ask his preferences: Which tasks to prioritize: Besides weeding and planting, Tony wants a culinary bay leaf hedge trimmed (grows like a weed), and a gravel...

Energy bars for a long hike. I lined up all 11 ingredients for these cookies. The array seemed a bit of overkill. Worthy of the label "jumble," these require nearly everything from your baking shelf. The result is hiker-hearty and probably good-for-you, featuring dried fruit (raisins), nuts (pecans, my favorite), molasses and, of course, the oats. These quickly drop onto a baking sheet, but I'd watch that they don't get too near the bottom of the oven. They were done in 8 minutes at 400 degrees, or 10 minutes at 300 degrees. Bottoms were burned just two minutes later. Many ingredients in these "jumbles." These are so crisp (read that hard), I'd flatten them and bake for only 6 minutes if I wanted to serve them to pre-schoolers. Make them for your next backpack trip, or snack on them for energy.  But I'd make other choices for a special treat. I could not find this recipe online, but I recommend you find another. There are loads of promi...

"Benne wafers?" Annette asked, eyes wide as she peered into my container. "Yes. How did you know the name of these cookies?" I asked. I'd brought about a dozen to a weekend basketry retreat. "I'm from the south. We ate them all the time, mostly for special holidays."  "Maybe I should find a better recipe if they are that popular. They caused me no end of trouble." Flattened with a knife on left, only dented on right. Cookies spread out the same, regardless of knife technique. I told Annette, a fellow basket weaver and retreat attendee, about my project. These cookies were published in my birth year. I suppose some people, when confronted with a year by year compendium of cookies, would skip directly to their own birth year and imagine that cookie the best of the bunch. Others would contemplate how representative it is of the era. I did no such thing. In fact, the recipe of 1954 crept up on me. Like each passing year seems to...

If I'd reported I turned down a trip to Italy because I just had to work on my cookie blog, everyone would know that was an April Fools joke. Instead, I'm planning to make cookies in Italy. Really. Civita di Bagnoregio, north of Rome, and near Orvieto. Another passion - gardening - has qualified me for a position as volunteer gardener in residence at a small architecture institute in Civita di Bagnoregio . The call for "volunteers" said, "Duties include but are not limited to planting seeds and starts, mulching, weeding, managing compost and irrigation, some pruning and harvesting. Also, will need to keep hand tools in good working order. Knowledge of sustainable practices is helpful, as is the ability to speak some Italian." I figured a dozen horticulture students with no job prospects, but an interest in Italy, would apply. They may still, but I beat them to the punch. My 28 years of digging in the soil, with emphasis on organic gardening, quali...