I am not much of a baker. I love making desserts but baking is another beast which I hope to tame at some point. I make cakes, simple ones and I am always thrilled when they come out good. 🙂 I love trying new recipes if I get some inspiration. I love going to different ethnic grocery stores and looking for ideas, I am always amazed at the various new things I learn each time.

One of my favorite grocery store near my home is a Persian/middle eastern grocery store. Any time I go there, I come back with something new and that starts my experimentations.

It is holiday season and holiday means cookies and cakes and all those yummy treats. I wanted to make cookies but did not which one to pick, they are all so tempting. Traditional chocolate chip, oatmeal resin, Italian biscotti, indian nankhatai, german spice cookie to name a few. So I thought why not a take help from everyone and took  a poll on my facebook page.

And majority of you said that they wanted to see a recipe that is ‘something different’ or with ‘innovative flavors’. I thought of many ideas but somehow this one seemed perfect for the time.

Here I present my first Xmas Cookie ( there are man

Cardamom- Pistachio shortbread with orange blossom glaze

Pistachio-orangeblossom

It stole my heart and the whole house smelt like heaven ( and  a lot like Haleh Bakery).

It is so easy yet looks very fancy and eclectic, you can make the dough ahead of time, keep it wrapped in the fridge. When you want, 15 minutes and you will have fresh batch of cookies.

Print

Pistachio Cardamom cookie

Course cookies, Dessert
Cuisine Indian, Persian
Servings 4
Author Anagha

Ingredients

Cookie dough

  • 1 1/2 Cups All purpose flour
  • 1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar
  • 1/2 Tsp Salt
  • 1 1/2 Stick Unsalted Butter cut in cubes About 12 tbsp
  • 1/2 Cup Unsalted Pistachios, slightly toasted and chopped
  • 1 unit Egg Yolk, you can use chilled milk for vegetarian option)
  • 1/2 Tsp Ground Cardamom

For Glaze

  • 1 Cup Powdered Sugar
  • 1 Unit Egg White You can use 1 Tbsp Milk instead
  • 3/4 Tsp Orange Blossom water ( you can use Rose water as well)

Instructions

Cookies

  1. In a food processor pulse the pistachios, cardamom and flour till the nuts are a little chopped

  2. Add powdered sugar and pulse more

  3. Add the butter and pulse till you get breadcrumb texture

  4. Add the egg yolk/cold milk. Keep pulsing till the dough comes together

  5. Take the dough and roll it into a log. 

    Keep the log in the fridge for a couple of hours for the dough to harden

Baking

  1. Pre heat the oven to 325 F

  2. Slice the log into about 1/4 inch thick pieces and bake for 15-17 mins.

    Let it cool completely.

Glaze

  1. Mix all the ingredients to make the glaze.

Decorate

  1. Take the cooled cookies, top with a small amount of glaze, decorate cookies with sliced pistachios, dried rose petals, saffron strands.