For our professional users, cheesecake is one of the more popular uses for Pistachio or Hazelnut Paste.
Pistachio Cheesecake
Here’s a great creamy cheesecake with delectable pools of pistachio paste. Serve it with fresh strawberries for a lovely spring dessert. Or garnish it with a dusting of shaved chocolate or gobs of fudge sauce for something more decadent.
Here’s the recipe for Pistachio Cheesecake
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With Saint Patrick’s Day on the horizon, we got to thinking about all things green. Pistachio Paste came to mind and our favorite Pistachio Harlequin Cookies. (These are made with the same dough used to make the Pistachio Schoolboy Cookies.) If piping cookies seems like too much fuss, here’s a closer look at how we made them. First, here is the dough after mixing. It is firm but softy enough to pipe.
We use a cookie press because it can be easier to handle than a pastry bag fitted with the star tip.
The dough has just the right consistency to retain its shape after baking. You can still see the crisp impressions and a little browning on the ridges of the dough.
Once you dip the end of each cookie in the melted chocolate and butter mixture, place them on a silicone mat if you have one. Or use parchment paper. Let them sit at room temperature and they will set up and pop easily from the mat.
Here’s the finished result. If you prefer a cookie with a richer green color, add a few drops of food coloring to the batter.
(Here is some useful information on how to stir the oil back into pistachio paste when you open the can.)
Pistachio Schoolbor Cookies
We’re addicted to a wonderful cookie called Petit Écolier, (Little Schoolboy) made a company called LU. It’s a thick rectangle of milk or bittersweet chocolate sitting atop a not-too-sweet butter cookie.
Our version of this cookie is no after-school snack but a sophisticated treat that happens to be easy to make. We’re using a buttery pistachio cookie dough, which is rolled into a log then chilled. The dough is then sliced and baked. As soon as the warm cookies come from the oven, they are topped with thin pieces of chocolate. As the cookies cool the chocolate will melt into a shiny layer.
(Here is some useful information on how to stir the oil back into pistachio paste when you open the can.)
Here is the Pistachio Harlequin Cookie Recipe.
Chocolate Pistachio Pie photo by Anna Williams
Recently, we received a flurry of emails and calls looking for Pistachio Paste. Why now we wondered. Because of Oprah of course. A yummy-sounding chocolate pie recipe in the November issue contains a secret ingredient, a few tablespoons of pistachio paste. It looks sinfully good and a great use of a smaller amount of the paste.
