Bakes

November 9 2023

Pistachio-Butter Cookies

Pistachios are widely used in the preparation of various desserts, including cookies. This time brown sugar butter cookies with lots of pistachios.

Preparation time: 1.5 hours
Level: easy
Quantity: About 70 cookies

Ingredients:
300 g room temperature butter
300 g wheat flour
250 g of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of baking powder
0.25 teaspoons of sea salt
2 eggs
1.5 teaspoons of vanilla sugar
350 g of coarsely ground pistachios

Preparation:

Crush the pistachios not quite finely.
Mix butter, brown sugar, vanilla sugar, wheat flour, baking powder, eggs, and about 300 g of pistachios. Mix until smooth.
Shape the dough into balls about 2 cm in size, place them on baking paper, press them slightly flat, and sprinkle them with the remaining pistachio nut crumbs.
Bake at 180 degrees C for 10 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool, carefully place them on a wire rack, and once they have cooled completely, store them in an airtight container.
Ready!!

November 2 2023

Pumpkin Maple Syrup Cookies

andrestover Bakes, Cookies maple syrup, pumpkin 0

In November, it is necessary to make at least one baking that contains pumpkin. Pumpkin, maple syrup, vanilla, and cinnamon is a combination you just have to like.

Preparation time: 1.5 hours
Level: easy
Quantity: About 150 cookies

Ingredients:
220 g room temperature butter
250 g pumpkin puree
340 g wheat flour
240 g of brown sugar
180 g of maple syrup
1 teaspoon of baking powder
0.25 teaspoons of sea salt
0.25 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 eggs
1.5 teaspoons of vanilla sugar

Preparation:

Mix the butter, brown sugar, vanilla sugar and maple syrup. Mix until smooth
Add wheat flour, baking powder, cinnamon, sea salt eggs, and pumpkin puree. Pumpkin puree is easy to make by yourself. Place the pumpkin section in the oven and bake at 200 degrees C for about an hour. Scrape the pumpkin mass into a bowl with a spoon, crush it with a hand blender if necessary, and use it to make bakes or pureed soups.
Mix everything into a smooth dough. The dough will be semi-liquid. Use a piping bag and spray cookies about 3 cm in size on a baking sheet covered with baking paper. Leave enough space between the cookies, they will turn thinner and wider.
Bake at 180 degrees C for 11 minutes until the edges of the cookies are light brown and the first part is still soft.
Cool the cookies in the baking sheet for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and cool completely before storing them in an airtight box.
Ready!!

October 29 2023

Apple frangipane cake

andrestover Bakes, Cakes almond flour, apple 0

Frangipane is a classic French almond-flavored cream that is used both in desserts and in the preparation of various cakes. This cream is already mentioned in French cookbooks of the 18th century.

Preparation time: 1.5 hours
Level: Medium
Quantity: One cake that can be cut into 12-16 slices

Ingredients:
Crust:
170 g of cold butter
200 g wheat flour
50 g of sugar
4 egg yolks

Filling:
250 g of sugar
250 g of almond flour
50 g wheat flour
70 g room temperature butter
2 teaspoons of vanilla sugar
0.25 teaspoons of sea salt
5 eggs
2 large apples, sliced.

Preparation:

Use a food processor to make the cake base or make the dough by hand. Cold butter must be crushed with flour and sugar.
Add egg yolks and knead the dough until smooth. Do not knead the dough for too long, so that the gluten does not form a dense, tough network.
Sprinkle flour on the work surface and roll the dough thinly. Line a cake tin with dough, cover it with baking paper, and pour peas on top, or use baking balls to prevent the dough from sinking during baking.
Bake at 180 degrees C for 20 minutes until the edges of the dough start to brown slightly
Prepare the cake filling. To do this, mix butter, almond flour, wheat flour, sugar, a little sea salt, vanilla sugar, and eggs. Mix the cream until smooth.
Wash the apples, cut them in half and remove the apple core, slice the apples with the peel into thin slices.
When the cake base is ready, pour the almond cream on the cake base and place the apple slices on the surface of the cake. I layered an apple slice in a circular shape with a little overlap.
Put a little sugar on the apple slices, which will caramelize slightly when cooked.
Bake the cake at 180 degrees C for about 20 minutes until the surface of the cream starts to turn slightly brown and the apples are soft.
Let the cake cool and sprinkle powdered sugar on top.
Ready!!

October 23 2023

Macaroons

andrestover Bakes, Cookies, National dishes almond flour, France 0

Krista and I decided to make macarons as part of the cookie challenge. Since I didn’t have the knowledge to make them myself, and Krista had prepared them according to the instructions of Ragne Värk’s excellent food blog, we used the instructions that can be found on this blog with minimal changes.
We made the macarons twice, the first one was for testing and it’s not worth talking about much of it, but we needed a wet dough, finer almond flour, and most importantly – most of the macarons failed because of this special silicone mat.
If we used regular baking paper, the situation changed drastically.

Preparation time: 1.5 hours
Level: more tricky than average
Quantity: About 40-45 macaroons

Ingredients:
240 g of almond flour
220 g of powdered sugar
In addition, 220 g of powdered sugar and 80 g of granulated sugar
200 g of egg white (it should be weighed for macaroons, not calculated by the number of eggs)
A little food coloring if desired

Strawberry Cream:
200 g of frozen strawberries
2-3 tablespoons of sugar
100 g of butter
100 g of cream cheese (Philadelphia, for example)

Preparation:

Pour the almond flour with 220 g of powdered sugar into the food processor and grind the almond flour very finely. Almond flour cannot be ground without adding powdered sugar, so much oil is released from it that the flour is immediately sticky and lumpy. Add a little food coloring to the almond flour and mix.
Beat the egg whites with 220 g of powdered sugar and 80 g of granulated sugar into a soft, shiny foam. The foam should not be too strong, it should flow slightly.
Using a fine sieve, sift the almond and sugar mixture into the egg white, and mix gently with a spatula. Don’t overmix because it adds air bubbles to the batter. The dough should be slightly runny.
Transfer the dough to a piping bag, use a round nozzle, and spray discs with a diameter of about 3 to 3.5 cm on a baking sheet covered with baking paper. The dough expands slightly, it is not necessary to make too big macaroons.
Let the baking pan with the macarons fall straight down on the table 4-5 times so that the air bubbles left in the dough come out.
Let the macarons stand at room temperature for 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven with a fan to 125 degrees C and bake the macaroons for 25 minutes.
You probably need to adjust the cooking time a bit for your oven.
After baking, let the macarons cool down. Macarons that have come out correctly have a characteristic “leg” and they are smooth on top, and when you remove them from the paper, there is no gap below, and the macarons are also smooth on the bottom.
While the macaroons are cooking, prepare the cream. To do this, boil strawberries with sugar until the water starts to evaporate. Puree the strawberries with a hand blender, and cool.
Mix cream cheese, butter, and strawberry puree. Mix until smooth.
When the macarons are ready and cooled, using a piping bag, spray cream on the underside of the macaron about 5 mm thick and press the second macaron against the cream. This is how to fill all the macarons.
Place the macarons in the refrigerator overnight, where their flavor becomes more complete.
Ready!!

October 19 2023

Butter Pecan Cookies

andrestover Bakes, Cookies, National dishes butter, pecan, USA 0

The butter-pecan flavor combination is known especially in the United States, where this flavor combination is used in puddings, ice creams, cakes, and, of course, cookies.
The fact that the butter used in the cookies is browned and has a sweet caramel smell gives it a special flavor boost.

Preparation time: 1.5 hours
Level: easy
Quantity: About 60 cookies

Ingredients:
300 g of butter
300 g coarsely chopped pecans
450 g of sugar. You can also use brown sugar to give the cookies an even stronger caramel shade
2 eggs and one egg yolk
3 teaspoons of vanilla sugar
500 g wheat flour
1.5 teaspoons of baking powder
0.5 teaspoon of sea salt

Preparation:

Melt the butter and bring it to a boil over medium heat. Cook for 7-10 minutes until the butter starts to brown slightly and smells sweet.
At the same time, mix sugar, vanilla sugar, egg, flour, baking powder, and sea salt.
Coarsely chop the pecans and add to the other ingredients.
Mix the dough until smooth. The dough will have a slightly runny consistency.
Shape the dough into balls about 3 cm in size and press slightly flat, place them on a baking pan covered with baking paper.
Bake at 180 degrees C for 15 minutes.
Let the cookies cool and store them in an airtight container.
Ready!!

October 10 2023

Sable Breton Cookies

andrestover Bakes, Cookies, National dishes butter, France 0

Classic cookies from the French Brittany region. The preparation of these cookies has been dated back to the 17th century. Sable means sand in French, and the grainy texture of the cookies is ensured by the use of lots of beaten eggs, flour, and high-quality butter. These biscuits were probably first made in Sablé-sur-Sarthe, which is known for its high-quality salted butter. I made cookies with regular butter, adding sea salt to give the cookies a slightly salty nuance. Nowadays, to decorate the cookies parallel stripes across are drawn.

Preparation time: 1.5 hours
Level: Easy
Quantity: About 90 cookies

Ingredients:
300 g of butter
230 g of sugar
9 egg yolks
540 g wheat flour
1.5 teaspoons of baking powder
2 teaspoons of vanilla sugar
0.5 tsp of sea salt

1 egg yolk for spreading on top of cookies

Preparation:

Beat room temperature or sugar and vanilla sugar to foam, add the egg yolks and beat additionally for about 1 minute.
Add sea salt, baking powder, and flour and mix the dough until smooth.
Sprinkle some flour on the work surface and roll the dough to a thickness of about 4-5 mm.
Cut cookies out of the dough with the edge of a round cookie cutter or a small glass and place them next to each other on a baking sheet covered with baking paper.
Use a fork to press perpendicular parallel lines on the surface of the cookies, which is the traditional way of designing Sable Breton cookies today.
Mix the egg yolk with 1 tablespoon of water until smooth and brush the cookies with this mixture.
Bake at 160 degrees C for 20 minutes.
Let the cookies cool and store them in an airtight container.
Ready!!

October 4 2023

Beer cookies

andrestover Bakes, Cookies, National dishes beer, Estonia 0

I remember my mother making these cookies from my childhood. I’m not sure if I liked them as a kid, but somehow I remember them. Mother made them using Žigul beer, the most famous beer in Soviet-era Estonia, which was the brand of light beer at the time.
I used Corona beer for my cookies that a beer-loving friend left for me at home. Should the cookies be renamed after him? The internet is full of recipes for these cookies, I used a recipe I found in my mother’s old cookbook and used it almost unchanged. I did replace the margarine of that time with farm butter.

Preparation time: 1.5 hours
Level: Easy
Quantity: 5 pans of cookies

Ingredients:
400 g of butter
600 g wheat flour
200 ml light beer
A little sea salt

Granulated sugar and ground cinnamon for dusting on the cookies

Preparation:

Mix flour, beer butter and salt. Knead it into a smooth dough. Do not knead the dough for too long, it is enough when it has become uniform. There is no need to make the gluten network dense.
The dough is relatively soft, place it in the refrigerator to cool for at least 30 minutes.
Sprinkle flour on the work surface, roll out a piece of dough about 3 mm thick, brush with water until slightly wet, and sprinkle with sugar liberally. Sprinkle cinnamon on top and cut the cookies into squares of the desired size with a dough cutter.
Use a cake spatula to place the cookies on a baking sheet covered with baking paper and bake at 180 degrees for 12 minutes.
Store cookies in an airtight container for a short time.
Ready!!

September 27 2023

Cranberrie cookies with white chocolate

andrestover Bakes, Cookies cranberries, white chocolate 0

The autumn has reached and it is appropriate to make cookies that match this season. Cranberries are very common berries in Estonia, they are used to make various national desserts, semolina foam, and kissel, they are put in oven roasts, pâtés, and bakes. Cranberries go well with chocolate, and especially white chocolate, balancing its sweetness.

Preparation time: 1 hour including baking
Level: Easy
Quantity: About 60 cookies

Ingredients:
220 g room temperature butter
150 g of brown cane sugar
50 g of white, refined sugar
2 medium eggs
300 g wheat flour
A pinch of sea salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
2 teaspoons of vanilla sugar
250 g of dried cranberries
250 g of white chocolate, chopped

Preparation:

Mix butter, brown and white sugar, and vanilla sugar and beat with a mixer
Add eggs, salt, flour, baking powder and mix until smooth.
Chop white chocolate or use chocolate buttons and add to the dough with the cranberries. Mix until smooth
Form balls about 2.5 cm in size, and place on a baking sheet covered with baking paper. Leave about 5 cm of space for the balls of wax.
Bake at 180 degrees C for 10 minutes
Let the cookies cool a little, carefully place them on a wire rack or work surface and let them cool completely.
Store in an airtight container in a cool place.
Ready!!

September 20 2023

Chocolate tear cookies with cream cheese

andrestover Bakes, Cookies dark chocolate, white chocolate, creamy cheese 0

Soft, rich chocolate cookies that are easy to prepare and suitable for any party, dinner, or coffee break. These cookies can be made nicely if you manage to get chocolate chips. Alternatively, you can simply chop the chocolate finely and add it to the cookies.

Preparation time: 1 hour including baking
Level: Easy
Quantity: About 80 cookies

Ingredients:

300 g of butter
350 g of sugar
2 teaspoons of vanilla sugar
400 g wheat flour
200 g of soft cream cheese, e.g. Philadelphia cheese
0.5 tsp sea salt
2 teaspoons of baking powder
2 eggs
275 g of white chocolate tears
275 g dark chocolate tears
About 150-200 g of dark chocolate tears to sprinkle on top of the cookies

Preparation:

Whip room temperature butter with sugar and vanilla sugar until foamy.
Add flour, salt, baking powder, cream cheese and eggs. Mix the finished soft dough.
Add the chocolate drops and mix until smooth.
Use a spoon to place heaps of dough about 2.5 cm in size on a baking sheet covered with baking paper, smooth them out a little with a wet hand, and sprinkle with dark chocolate tears.
Bake at 180 degrees C for 10 minutes.
Let the cookies cool before removing them to cool. Allow the cookies to cool completely and store in an airtight container.
Ready!!

September 14 2023

Brutti ma Buoni

andrestover Bakes, Cookies, National dishes hazelnut, Italy 0

Cookies whose name means “Good, but ugly”. Classic Italian cookies that are essentially Swiss meringue mixed with toasted hazelnuts.
The cookies originate from the Prato region, but they are also effective in other parts of Italy. The history of these cookies dates back to the middle of the 19th century. I think these cookies deserve their name.

Preparation time: 1.5 hours including baking
Level: Easy
Quantity: About 60 cookies

Ingredients:
6 egg whites
400 g toasted and coarsely crushed hazelnuts
300 g of sugar

Preparation:

Separate the egg whites from the yolks, add sugar, and whip lightly with a hand whisk.
On medium heat, cook the egg and sugar mixture until it is hot to the touch. Under no circumstances should it be heated to boiling, then you will get a sweet and white scrambled egg. It is safe to do it in a water bath, but you can also do it on the stove if you constantly stir quickly. It takes about 5-6 minutes.
Pour the egg and sugar mixture into a mixing bowl and mix until sharp peaks form and until the meringue is strong and shiny
Crush the roasted hazelnuts semi-coarsely and mix them into the meringue.
Use a teaspoon to place heaps of about 3 cm on a baking sheet covered with baking paper, leaving a little space between the cookies.
Bake in a fan oven at 180 degrees C for 20 minutes until the meringue is light brown. It is quite soft to the touch. Let the meringues set collect the cookies and store them in an airtight container. When taken out of the oven, the meringue is quite soft, but quickly becomes solid and crunchy.
Ready!!