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Showing posts with the label sesame seeds

#18 Biscotti di Regina (Queen's Biscuits) 1955

Round balls, as per the recipe, and thumbprint variation. Gourmet Cookie Book says these are cake-like sesame cookies, served at Italian weddings and christenings. In spite of the toasted sesame coating and a tasty vanilla-flavored dough (I always taste the raw dough, don't you?), these cookies are dry, dry, dry. Their saving grace is that they soften and color up nicely when dunked into wine. As long as you don't mind sesame seeds in your wine. Butter mixture gets mooshed into flour mixture. Refrigerating in discs allows quicker chilling. I tried an alternative preparation. The sesame coating reminded me of a thumbprint cookie recipe, so I pressed small holes in the center of each dough ball and filled them with apricot jam. The fruit adds to the flavor combo, adds moisture, and glues some of the crumbly dough together. My Tuesday knitting group likes them. Good thing, because the recipe makes 5 dozen. I'm sticking with my initial assessment. They still look ...

#15 Benne Wafers 1954

"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...