Almond Cookies with Lemon and Dark Chocolate Variations

Background

A few years ago, I was introduced to the wonder that is a pignoli cookie.  Pignoli, or pinoli, being the Italian word for pine nut, these delightful bites are an almond flavored cookie rolled in pine nuts and sprinkled with powdered sugar.  But, have you seen the price of pine nuts lately?  Good gravy!  While I love the taste the pine nuts add, I also love anything that incorporates almond paste, so I started making the cookies sans pignoli coating.

In fact, one of my first experiences making them without pine nuts was for an afternoon tea with a friend.  The recipe made a lot and she enjoyed them, so I sent her home with a tupperware full of extras for her and her husband to enjoy.  The report back? "My husband loves these cookies - says they remind him of some his mother used to make."  That cinched it.  These became a staple.

And then I got creative, mostly because nothing is really ever "finished" in my mind; everything can be improved upon.  Plus, I had a lemon tree going nutso in my backyard.  I played around with a batch of the almond cookie dough and came up with a lemon version.  Wanting to send some to a friend on the East Coast and feeling like I should have more than one variation on a theme, I came up with the dark chocolate version, as well (the first, and failed, iteration of which involved rolling in dutch processed cocoa powder - bitter!).

What follows is the ingredient list and directions for all three variations.  Try at will.

Ingredients

1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz.) Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix

½ C. granulated sugar

½ C. butter or margarine, softened

1 can (7 or 8 oz.) almond paste (not marzipan)

1 egg

3 T. lemon zest

yellow decorator’s sugar

½ C. 60% dark chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  For plain almond cookies, mix the first 5 ingredients in a stand mixer until well incorporated.  I like to check dough to make sure there aren’t huge chunks of almond paste in places (then again, biting into a chunk of almond paste doesn’t seem like a horrible thing to me!).  With palms, roll dough into roughly 1” balls, trying to keep the dough balls a consistent size for each batch.  Place onto nonstick or greased baking sheet being sure to leave around 2” of space between cookies – they will expand.  Bake for 13 – 17 minutes, until cookies begin to become golden around the edges.  Remove from oven and let sit a few minutes.  Remove cookies to a cooling rack, but eat at least one while they’re still hot – it’s a religious experience.

For lemon almond cookies, add lemon zest to the first five ingredients and mix until well incorporated, again checking for big pieces of almond paste.  After shaping your 1” dough balls, roll in yellow decorators sugar and place on cookie sheet, 2” apart.  The rest is the same.

For Dark Chocolate Almond Cookies, make the plain almond cookies according to the directions above.  When cookies have completely cooled, melt 60% dark chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl.  To do this, set the microwave to 30 seconds at full power.  After 30 seconds, stir chips and return another 30 seconds.  Repeat until chips are completely melted.  Note that getting water in your melted chips can cause the chocolate to seize (become hard and chunky).  This should be avoided so that your lovely baking experience is not suddenly interrupted by large amounts of swearing.  When chocolate is melted, dip half of each almond cookie in the chocolate and remove to a piece of wax paper.  Finished cookies can be set aside to set up or moved to the refrigerator or freezer for faster setting.

Baker’s note:  If you are the creative type, you may even decide to add further fanciness before the chocolate sets.  I suggest sprinkling the chocolate half of the cookie with some diced fresh almonds, colorful sprinkles or coconut.  Making these for a holiday?  Add some food coloring to your dough before baking – red or green dough against the dark chocolate looks very festive at Christmas time.  Springtime?  How about a pastel dough dipped in white chocolate instead of dark?  Don't be afraid to experiment.

Yield - at least 4 dozen.  Exact count will depend on how big you make them.

G'ma V's Ravioli - Pumpkin Goat Cheese and Spinach Goat Cheese

Astute readers have noticed that my main blog page contains a picture of ravioli.  "Are those yours?" they ask.  Not only are they mine, but I shall now grace you with the recipe, including a new filling I created last night.

Background
Some of my earliest and fondest memories include cooking and baking with my family.  Grandma's house, where I spent a lot of time as a child, almost always smelled of garlicky, sausagy red sauce.  And though I often watched and helped cook, somehow I only recently became interested in making ravioli from scratch (having "mastered" the sauce, plain ol' pasta and whole wheat pasta).  Upon receiving Grandma's "recipe" - something Dad typed up on the computer from Grandma's old notes - I discovered the fillings had cow's milk products in them, a blow to my lactose intolerant husband.  It would have been easy enough just to omit cheese and leave the filling mostly meat, but it was autumn and the spirit of the season hit me.  Plus, I had a can of pureed pumpkin sitting around.  When summer rolled around and spinach was once again in season, the alternative filling at the end of this post was born.

Ingredients for Dough
1 C. scant all purpose flour
1 egg
water

Ingredients for Pumpkin Goat Cheese Filling
1 C. pureed pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling - they usually stock them next to each other, so watch out!)
1 oz. crumbled goat cheese (herbed if you like, but note the herbs then play with your end flavor)
1 t. dried rubbed sage (OR 1 t. another herb you like: you could easily go the sweeter route and add cinnamon or nutmeg... or allspice)
1/4 t. garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

For the filling, place pureed pumpkin and goat cheese in the top of a double boiler (or a metal bowl that can sit on top of a sauce pan).  While over the heat, use a hand mixer to incorporate these two ingredients together.  You will see the color of the pumpkin puree mellow as the cheese melts in.

Remove from heat and add spices to taste.  PLEASE always taste as you go along.  You know what you like.  If you like a bit more of a kick to your food, you can use a stronger pepper than ground black pepper.  Set aside.

For the pasta dough, on a clean, flat surface, make a little mountain out of the flour.  Starting in the middle, top of the mountain, swirl your finger around wider and wider, so that there is now a hole in the center of your mountain.  Crack one egg into that hole.  With a fork, beat the egg inside the flour mountain.

As you beat, bring more and more flour from the mountain edges into the mixture.  When the flour and egg begin to form a sticky dough that is difficult to manipulate with a fork, switch to kneading with your hands, being sure to incorporate all the flour.

The dough will be dry, so add small amounts of water at a time.  I'm talking several drops, not even a teaspoon - the dough can get too watery quite quickly.  If your dough becomes too watery, fear not, just add a little more flour.  Work the dough until a solid, smooth consistency is reached.  Form dough into a ball and set in a bowl to rest, brushing the top with olive oil and covering with a cloth.  Let dough rest at least 15 minutes to relax the gluten.  With this recipe, you may have filling left over, so feel free to double the dough recipe.  The single recipe should make about 15-20 ravioli.

To assemble the ravioli, flour a large, flat, clean surface and roll dough.  Dough should be quite thin, so I find using the roller function on a pasta machine to be quite helpful (you CAN do this by hand with a LONG rolling pin - it will take time).  Follow the instructions on your pasta machine, but generally, you want to start on thicker settings and gradually switch to thinner and thinner settings.  You want a fairly thin dough, but not so thin that your filling will break through.  You'll likely need to work in batches; I usually cut the dough ball in half.  When desired thickness is reached, use a knife to cut ravioli dough into strips, about 2"x5-6".

Place a small amount - just under a teaspoon - of filling on one half of the strip.  You want to be able to fold the other half on top of it, so leave room.  Also, be sure to leave enough room around the edges of your pasta to seal it.  Fold the fillingless half of the pasta over onto the filling half and press edges closed with your fingers, being careful not to let filling seep out.

You can further seal the pasta using an everyday fork.  Using the tines, go around the three non-folded edges, pressing the tines firmly into the dough - but not hard enough to break through into the filling.  You can also trim the outside edges with a knife to make them more uniform - DON'T toss that extra dough, though - reroll it :)

Place finished ravioli on a lightly floured dish towel or piece of wax paper atop a baking sheet.  Do not stack - they will stick together.










If you are freezing your ravioli, sprinkle the tops of the ravioli with flour and place baking sheet(s) directly into freezer.  After a few hours, ravioli can be gathered from the sheets and placed into freezer bags for more compact storage.

To cook your ravioli, shake off any excess flour and place in boiling, salted water on the stove top.  Note: homemade, fresh pasta does not take as long to cook as store-bought, dried pasta.  For fresh ravioli, often 5-7 minutes will do the trick.  Frozen ravioli will take a few more minutes.  The telltale sign that it is done is that the ravioli will float on top of the water.



Spinach and Goat Cheese Filling
1 bunch/bag of spinach (washed, dried, stems removed and roughly chopped)
1/2 large onion, finely chopped
1 t. garlic, minced
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
2 oz. crumbled goat cheese
1/2 egg

Over medium heat, saute onion in olive oil until almost translucent.  Add garlic and saute a couple minutes more, being sure to avoid burning the garlic.  Add spinach and toss, cooking until the greens are wilted.  Remove from heat and allow mixture to cool completely.  Add in salt, pepper, goat cheese and egg and mix well (I use my hands).  Your filling is now ready to be made into ravioli.  Again, you may have some filling left over - you can always make one more batch of dough.