Sunday, November 13, 2005

Yet another load of nut cookies

Remember the peanut butter cookies from the other day? Well, I spotted a chunky jar of hazelnut paste in a local Turkish shop (new, so I had to check it out after numerous praises from my Turkish flatmates). It contains 75% of chopped hazelnuts and 25% of sugar.



And once again I made cookies. I added one egg and reduced the amount of sugar, using just over half a cup for the 360 gram jar of nut paste.



Dead simple again, resulting in yummy, nutty and very chewy cookies. Mmmmm.. If I could only find pistachio paste somewhere now...

5 comments:

Michèle said...

Hi Pille, what a clever idea! the cookies look wonderful, I can almost smell them from here ;)

Anonymous said...

I want to taste some of those cookies and I want you to make the pistachio ones, too.

Paz

Anonymous said...

That hazelnut paste looks great, and I've never thought to use something like that in a recipe for peanut butter cookies. I'll have to try it - where is this new Turkish market?

By the way, pistachio paste is really easy to make. You can follow Heidi's recent recipe for pistachio butter, or just toast and grind shelled pistachios together with a little bit of vegetable oil. You don't even have to blanch and peel them if you don't want to, though it will make it a little greener if you do.

Pille said...

Michele and Paz - I guess it's easy to 'almost smell and taste' them - they were very hazelnutty:) Thanks for popping by!

Melissa - the new shop (sorry, can't remember the name, something with 'bazar') is on South Clerk Street, opposite the block where Blockbusters/Post Office/Peckhams deli are. It's not large shop, but seems to have a good range of Turkish goods, mainly imported from Germany apparently.
Thanks for the tip about pistachio paste!!! I don't have a grinder or food processor, thou. I wonder if an old fashioned pestle and mortar would do...

Anonymous said...

Okay, I'll have to check it out. As for the pistachio paste, I imagine a pestle and mortar would work fine, though it'll be quite a bit more work :) Actually, in that case I would blanch and peel the pistachios first, as they come out quite soft and mashing them by hand will probably be easier. Otherwise you're welcome to drop by anytime and run a batch through my food processor!