Whole Wheat Almond Biscotti

Its been whole grains on my mind of late and I seem to be actually hoarding them! Amaranth flour thanks to Deeba, then some buckwheat flour, barley flour, sprouted finger millet flour, cornmeal and of course good old wheat flour. I made a stash of ragi malt with plenty more whole grains and nuts thrown in. Sweetened with jaggery or sugar, flavored with cardamom, I love sipping on some any time of the day! It goes to hubby's office in a flask for the late evening hunger pangs, the ever hungry pre-teen son manages to gulp down a glass now and then. The fussy daughter however still wrinkles her little nose, sigh! 

Whole wheat crepes, granola, granola bars, whole wheat almond biscotti and more have been appearing more often! I hope this isn't a passing phase and I stay inspired to include more of these grains in our meals. Its an acquired taste alright, but we should get there. Lots to experiment with, you will hopefully see more healthier baking here. Oh no, I never said I will forget all the sinful desserts and bakes, did I? 

Stumbled upon this recipe for biscotti made with whole wheat, almond meal and less sugar than usual. Without added fat, these are crunchy but not very hard. The log slices really well, making for thin biscotti. Slightly coarse textured, just about sweet (think Marie biscuits), these will be good cookies for the health conscious. If making these for kids, you may need to step up on the sugar by a tablespoon or more, add the mandatory chocolate chips or whatever catches their fancy. I have flavored the biscotti with Chai masala and orange zest, which is just a suggestion, cinnamon, cardamom or plain vanilla will be great too! 

Whole Wheat Almond Biscotti - Recipe from New York Times

Ingredients: To make about 15-18 thin biscotti .

Whole wheat flour - 125 grams

Almond meal - 30 grams

Baking powder - 1/2 teaspoon

Chai masala - 1 1/4 teaspoon

Brown sugar - 62 grams / 1/3 cup packed

Vanilla extract - 1/2 teaspoon

Eggs - 72 grams / 1 1/2 eggs

Orange zest, fresh from one orange. 

Almonds - 50 grams toasted and chopped ( I have used almond flakes)

• Method : Pre-heat oven to 150 degrees C / 300 F. Line a baking tray ( I used a 10x12) with parchment. 

• Sift together the flours, baking powder, salt and chai masala. Zest the orange. I love my Microplane Zester* for this!Take the eggs, sugar, orange zest and vanilla in a medium sized bowl. Using a hand mixer, beat for the mixture for about 2 minutes on speed 3. The mixture will be thick. 

• Fold in the flour mixture, stir in the almonds. The dough will be sticky, may be a little less sticky and a little more firmer than the normal biscotti dough. 

• Scrape the mixture in the middle of the lined pan. With wet hands shape the dough into a log. I made mine about 9'' x 2'', about an inch high. If doubling the recipe, make two logs side by side, with at least 2 inches space between them and two inches around the logs. 

• Bake for about 35-40 minutes or till firm to the touch. The logs will spread but not a lot. Cool for 20 minutes or more if it suits your convenience.

• Place the log on the kitchen counter or dry cutting board. Slice on the diagonal into thin slices. 

• Arrange them on the baking sheet cut side down. (These are too thin to stand them up). Bake 10-12 minutes on each side. Bake longer for extra crunchy biscotti.

• Cool and store in an airtight container. 
• Please note : Use unrefined sugar or organic brown sugar in you wish, I have not tried these yet. Omit the chopped almonds in the dough if you want to cut down the calories further. 

If you like having these twice baked cookies around, you may want to play around with this recipe! 

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Flourless Coffee Almond Cookies

After staying away from baked meringue in general, I am finally coming to the conclusion that I may like it after all!  I had tried pavlova ages ago and had not taken much of a liking to it. Since then I have been paying little attention to meringue based recipes.

When I asked for a recipe for flour less cookies, the Google Gods directed me to Purple Foodie's Flourless Hazelnut Cookies. They looked so delicate and pretty! No butter, no oil, just whipped egg whites, sugar and ground nuts. Not intimidating like French Macarons, so not much to lose! Shaheen's description of their aroma makes you feel like scrounging around for some hazelnuts, but then good quality ones are not so easy (or cheap!) to find. So almonds it would have to be. If there are going to be almonds, can coffee be left far behind? 

It would weigh on my conscience if I did not mention that there is a possibility I may not got these the way they are meant to be. Having never baked macarons, I realized half a cup of almonds and a fourth of cup of sugar are quite a bit to be folded into the whites of one egg. Though you can't possibly fold in the nuts and sugar without deflating the whipped whites to some extent, am not sure how much of it is alright in these cookies. 

But I am going right ahead and posting these as I found the cookies quite light, nutty, tender-crunchy and delicious!  Even assuming my cookies are not quite there, the results you can get can only be better! 

Apparently, these Italian cookies are called Brutti Ma Buoni literally meaning, “Ugly But Good''!  

Below is half the recipe on Shaheen's blog.  Please do double the recipe if you can bake them all at one go.

Recipe from here, original recipe here .  

Ingredients: (made about 20 cookies or so)

Whole Almonds -  75 grams / 1/2 cup ( or hazelnuts, lightly toasted and skinned, you could also try walnuts, read note)

Granulated sugar - 50 grams / 1/4 cup / 4 tablespoons

Instant coffee - 1 1/4 teaspoons (or orange zest)

Egg white -  30 grams / 1 large white

Powdered sugar - 1 tablespoon

Cream of tartar - a tiny, tiny pinch (about HALF of 1/8 tsp)

Vanilla extract - 3/4 teaspoon

Flaked almonds - 1/2 cup

Method:

1. Preheat to 160°C/325°F. Line two baking sheets with Silpat or parchment paper.
2. Put the whole almonds in a plastic cover, close and bash with a rolling pin to break them into uneven pieces. This will help you grind them fine without getting them oily.
3. Pulse nuts, coffee (or zest) and sugar in a food processor or the smallest jar of your mixie until finely ground. Short 10-15 second turns, 2 times at the lowest speed will be good. Be sure not to overdo this as you need this to be like fine meal, not clumped up nuts and sugar. 
4. Make sure your bowl and beaters for whipping egg whites are squeaky clean.
5. Beat egg whites on low speed till you seem it foaming. Add the cream of tartar and beat on medium speed (3 on hand mixer) till you see traces of the beaters on the whites. This will look like shaving foam now. Add the powdered sugar slowly and continue beating on medium speed till stiff peaks form. When you raise the beaters slowly, the whites will stand up straight and not droop right away. If you are not there yet, continue and check after about 10-15 seconds. Be wary of over whipping as it will make the whites go dry.
6. Using a silicone spatula, gently fold in the nut mixture into the whites ( I added in two additions). If adding vanilla or any other flavoring, you can add now when you fold in the nuts.
7. The mixture looked quite heavy but foamy. Is this how it works in this recipe?? The moment of tragedy when my dreams of baking French macarons were completely shattered!
8. I made cookies with half tablespoon batter each leaving about an inch space in between the cookies. They spread as they bake. Gently drop almond flakes on top of the cookies. Rap the baking sheet a couple of times over the counter.
9. Bake for 22-24 minutes. The cookies will feel firm all over. If the center is softish, bake a couple of minutes more. Cookies which feel softish in the center will have chewy centers.
10. Cool the cookies on the tray for about 5 minutes. Store airtight. 

Please note: 

1. Blanched or un blanched almonds make a difference to the color of the cookies, since I have used  coffee I have used them as is.

2. If adding coffee or  zest, add all at one go when you grind the nuts. Repeated addition of flavoring and grinding repeatedly however briefly makes the nuts turn oily. 

3. Shaheen has reduced the sugar from the original recipe, I have added one tablespoon more and this was just fine with the coffee. Please alter the amount of coffee to taste. 

4. Reading recipes for French macarons, folding in nuts into the whites seems to be acceptable. So no concerns on that count. 

Pretty or not, perfect or not, I loved them the way they turned out, am making these again!

Carrot Cake Macaroons. Flavorful Little Bites!

Carrot is not just for cake, says Alice Medrich. And I nod in total agreement. I love her book Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Cookies for constantly reassuring me that there are heaps, heaps more of these delightful little things to be baked. An alluring variety of textures and taste, its so easy yield to the temptation and bake from the book over and over again! Having tremendously enjoyed her Bittersweet Decadence Cookies , Bittersweet Brownies, Cocoa Brownies, Mock Puff Pastry, Cocoa Tuiles, Citrus Tuiles , Coconut Wafers and Coffee Walnut Cookies I can safely say, if you enjoy your cookies, this is one book you may want to own.

Spicy Carrot Masala Macaroons. Wait! How did this one escape my eye! Desserts with a touch of heat - no, not really my thing. But I could surely imagine little chewy macaroons with carrots, almonds, and coconut, spiced with cinnamon, cloves, and orange zest. They turned out to be chewy, delicious little bites indeed! Watch the recipe video! Have you subscribed yet?

If you haven't tried macaroons yet, they have a crispy outer crust when just out of the oven, the interiors moist and chewy, think the ever popular South Indian Coconut Fudge. Unlike the famous French cookies macarons which are notorious for being tricky, these are really easy, quick and forgiving. Best the day they are baked, they soften the next day, but delicious nevertheless!

Ingredients:

• Whole almonds (with or without skin) - 105 grams / 3.75 oz / 3/4 cup
• Egg whites - 60 grams / 2, large
• Sugar - 200 grams / 7 oz/ 1 cup ( I have weighed and powdered it, you could use fine grained)
• Ground cinnamon - 1 teaspoon (or garam masala or pumpkin pie spice)
• Ground cloves - 1/8 - 1/4 teaspoon (will add this next time, just a suggestion)
• Salt - 1/4 teaspoon
• Carrots, medium - finely shredded - 158 grams / 5.625 oz/ 1 plus 1/3 cup lightly packed
• Unsweetened dried shredded coconut, NOT dessicated coconut - 63 grams / 2.25 oz / 3/4 cup
• Orange zest - 1/2 teaspoon (the recipe has much lesser lemon zest, please read note)

Procedure:

• Line your cookie sheets with baking parchment. Set aside. Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees C / 325 degree F. Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.

• Place the almonds in a zip lock bag and bash with a rolling pin till its mostly in smallish pieces. This helps in grinding it without making it oily or pasty before getting them to the texture you need. 
• Grind them to an uneven meal in the smallest jar of your mixer (or pulse in the food processor). The texture should range from mostly fine to finely chopped. Set aside.

• In a medium sized, thick bottomed steel saucepan with a handle (helps you hold it in place as you stir), whisk the egg whites with a fork till frothy. Whisk in the zest, ensuring there are no lumps. 
• Stir in the sugar, spices and salt. Add the grated carrot, coconut and almonds. Stir until all the ingredients are moistened. Set aside for 10 minutes to dissolve the sugar and hydrate the coconut.  
• Bring a large wide skillet of water to a very low simmer; place bowl in skillet. cook 5-7 minutes, or until the mixture is very hot and the liquid turns from opaque to translucent, stirring constantly with a silicone spatula, making sure to scrape the bottom.
• Drop heaping teaspoons 1 inch apart on the lined baking sheet. Or form tall beehives with your fingers. Bake for 20-25 minutes or till the tips of the carrot shreds begin to color and the bottoms of the cookies are deep golden brown. This again may vary depending on your oven. 
• I think I like these a tad underdone as they taste so moist and good! I have baked for about 20 minutes as mine were really small. Bake a small test batch (err on the side of under-baking rather than over bake), cool and taste. If they are too hard or jaw-achingly chewy or dry (don't ask me how I know), reduce the baking time by a couple of minutes. 
• Rotate pans halfway to ensure even baking.
• Set the pan on the rack, cool cookies completely before storing.
• In case, you find it difficult to remove them from the parchment, hold one cookie at a time, gently peel the parchment away.
  
• The cookies keep for 3-4 days loosely covered to prevent sogginess, rather than airtight.

Note: If you use more zest, it may overpower the cinnamon. Use lesser zest to play up the cinnamon, or omit altogether. But I had used the zest of almost one whole orange, it was very, very zesty, but paired amazingly well with the carrot and almonds.