The internet seems to be having a big pistachio moment right now. I have been having a pistachio ‘moment’ for many years now, I am happy to see everyone else is catching on to how delicious everything pistachio is.
There are a few recipes floating around that use a pistachio cream (crema di pistacchio) as a filling for cookies, plus a few bakeries selling cookies like this too. I am all for pistahcio cream anything, however, when it comes to using it in baking at home I really consider how I am going to use it.
Crema di pistacchio is an expensive ingredient, and sometimes not easy to buy. I have had multiple times I’ve found a brand of pistachio cream I like, only for the shop I bought it from to never sell it again. I’ve got the impression that these shop’s suppliers find it hard to import these products from Italy for whatever reason. But it’s really annoying to find something, enjoy it, then never be able to buy it again.
And that’s not to mention the price per jar, which is usually around $20AUD for a 180g or so jar. If I’m using a whole jar in one recipe, that’s an expensive bake.
There are Australian based brands that are making/selling pistachio creams/spreads that you could use. One of the brands I found was genuinely disgusting in flavour, and the other has quite a low percentage of pistachios in the spread. While the second brand I thought flavour wise was pretty good considering the low percentage of pistachios and the price, baking with it is still a rather expensive exercise. I also didn’t love how many ‘extra’ ingredients were contained in some of these spreads, compared to the imported Italian varieties.
Considering all that, I decided if I were going to make some cookies/biscuits stuffed with a pistachio spread, I was going to make the spread myself. A homemade pistachio spread or butter will have a better flavour than many of the bought pistachio creams, plus it won’t be quite as expensive!
I have been making pistachio butter/spread like the one in the recipe below for years (if you have my ebook Cosy Winter Bakes you might recognise the pistachio butter recipe!). The addition of white chocolate gives the pistachio spread a sweetness and creamy texture that is similar to the bought varieties.
When using homemade pistachio spread/butter as a filling in cookies, you won’t get that oozing of the pistachio spread out of the cookie (when the cookie is broken in half) like you would when buying a cookie like this or making one using crema di pistacchio. However, I think its a small price to pay for a delicious cookie, that doesn’t have to use up your very expensive jar of pistachio cream, and is decidedly less messy to eat as well!
Homemade Pistachio Butter/Spread
Pistachio Filled Caramelised White Chocolate Cookies/Biscuits
Ingredients:
170g raw pistachios
160g caramelised white choc (e.g. Caramilk, or any white choc)
120g unsalted butter, melted
180g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp milk
1 egg, beaten
290g self raising flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp slivered pistachios (or roughly chopped whole pistachios)
Method:
Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius and line a tray with baking paper. Place the pistachios on the tray, and roast in the oven for 5-7 minutes or until they are lightly golden and fragrant. Allow to cool. You won’t need your oven again for a while so you can turn it off for now.
Make the pistachio butter by blitzing the toasted pistachios in a food processor until they form fine crumbs. Measure out 50g of the pistachio crumbs and set aside, this will be used in the biscuit dough later.
Melt 60g of the caramelised white chocolate, then add to the blitzed pistachios. Keep blitzing until the pistachios form a paste (this will take around 10 minutes, depending on your food processor). Scrape down the sides of the food processor bowl now and then to ensure everything is processing evenly. Once done the pistachio butter will be smooth and creamy, and the texture will seem light and soft. Place the pistachio butter in a bowl or container and leave in the fridge until it has chilled and firmed up (at least 1 hour, but you can do this step in advance and leave overnight).
To make the biscuit dough, place the melted butter, sugar, vanilla, milk and egg in a large mixing bowl, and whisk until combined.
In another bowl, whisk together the flour, the 50g pistachio crumbs you set aside earlier, and the baking powder.
Roughly chop the remaining caramelised white chocolate (100g), until you have small chunks.
Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, and mix with a wooden spoon until almost combined. Add the chopped chocolate and mix until everything is combined.
Cover the bowl and place in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes.
Once the dough has chilled, divide it into 12 equal portions.
Take one of the portions and remove about 1/3 of the dough. Press the remaining larger portion of dough into a flatter disc, allowing the sides to curl up like a birds nest. Place a heaped teaspoon of the chilled pistachio butter inside the dough. Bring the sides of the dough up around the butter, then place the remaining 1/3 of dough over the top of the pistachio butter filled biscuit and smooth out so there are no gaps. Gently roll the filled biscuit between your hands so it is a nice round shape.
Continue with each of the portions of dough so you have 12 pistachio butter filled individual dough balls. You should use most if not all of the pistachio butter across the 12 biscuits.
Place the dough balls on a lined tray or in a container (or similar), cover, and place in the fridge for 3 hours (or overnight).
When ready to bake the biscuits, preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Ensure you have two large baking trays lined and ready.
Spread the dough biscuit balls out over the prepared trays leaving enough room around the biscuits as they will spread. Sprinkle with the slivered pistachios, pushing them into the dough a bit.
Bake for about 15 minutes, or until they are gently golden in colour. Rotate the trays in the oven at least once during the cooking time so the biscuits cook more evenly. If you can’t bake the biscuits all at once leave the dough balls in the fridge until you have oven space.
Allow to cool on the trays for 10 minutes before eating.
Makes 12 large biscuits.
These cookies are a more cake-y style cookie, so they are the absolute best the day they are baked. You can store them in an airtight container or jar, however they will have a slightly softer texture than when they were first baked. You can refresh them a bit by putting them in the oven for 5-8 minutes at 160 degrees Celsius.
