Italian Wedding Cookies Recipe

I will be catering several weddings this spring, so I came up with my own version of Italian wedding cookies, after many trials, and a few errors to produce a delicate buttery cookie that is made with ground nuts. There are several different types of these cookies which include the Mexican Wedding cookies, often coated with a mixture of cinnamon and confectioners' sugar. The Russian Tea Cakes which can be made with ground hazelnuts, and Italian Wedding cookies which traditionally use ground almonds. All of them are delicious, and each recipe utilizes a different proportion of butter and flour. They are a very good suprise in you mouth, delicate little cookie. I would try all different types, or versions to figure out the one you like best.

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These Italian Wedding cookies are buttery, delicate, and have a wonderful flavor. This is a very easy recipe to make, and they are worth the effort put forth for every cookie and crumble left.

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Italian Wedding Cookies:

1½ cups unsalted butter

¾ cup confectioners' sugar

¾ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups finely ground almonds

4 ½ teaspoons vanilla bean paste

3 cups of sifted all purpose flour

1/3 cup confectioners sugar for dipping

First, preheat your oven to 325 degrees if you have an electric oven and about 300 to 315 if you have a gas oven. Gas ovens cook much faster than an electric oven depending on the oven. If you have a convection oven I recommend turning the fan off if you can, it will burn the cookies before they are fully cooked.

First you will soften and mix the butter in a bowl, and you will sift and then add the ¾ cup confectioners sugar and salt to the butter. You will then mix the butter, and sugar with salt mixture until it is light and fluffy. You will now add the ground almonds and the vanilla bean paste. You will then add the sifted flour in until it just mixed, you do not want to over mix, or overwork the dough. The cookies will not be very light in texture if you do.

Take about one teaspoon of dough in your hand at a time, and roll it into a ball. You will then place the rolled cookie dough balls on the parchment paper or an ungreased cookie sheet if you do not have parchment paper. You will then bake the cookies for 15-20 minutes. You will want to watch the first batch fairly closely and turn halfway through baking to ensure even cooking. You want to make sure to get them cooked but not too brown. Once the cookies are done you will remove from the oven, and cool the cookies for about five minutes, and then roll in the left over confectioners sugar.

You will then hold these little delicate cookies until you are ready for service.

Italian Wedding Cookies Recipe

Chef Shelley Pogue, a Cum Laude, Le Cordon Blue graduate and Executive Research and Development Chef, for Vertical Sales and Marketing, San Ramon, CA. Shelley is also the desserts editor for BellaOnline.com

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Delicious Chocolate Chip Toffee Bits Drop Cookies

1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup butter and margarine, softened
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, divided use, you will need to make sure to sift your flour to remove any lumps of flour.
3/4 cups of granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda, sift to remove any lumps
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup of milk chocolate chip pieces
1 cup of toffee pieces

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You will need to preheat your oven to 375°F.
In a large mixing bowl you will cream the shortening and butter until well blended. Add 1 cup of sifted flour, sugar, eggs, baking soda and vanilla, and you will beat all ingredients until they are combined. Stir in remaining 1 1/4 cups of sifted flour until just mixed. You will now fold in the chocolate chip cookies, and the toffee pieces. You will need to portion the cookies into about a heaping teaspoon size and space them 2-inches apart onto an ungreased baking sheet. Make sure that all of the cookies you are spooning onto the sheet are similar in size to make sure that the cookies will cook at the same time.you will bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until edges are a nice light golden brown color. When the cookies are ready you will remove them from the oven and cool on baking sheet for 1 to 2 minutes. You will then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool. You can store any of the remaining or uneaten cookies in a plastic storage bag or container. I hope that you enjoy these cookies, they are very tasty!

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Delicious Chocolate Chip Toffee Bits Drop Cookies

Chef Shelley Pogue, a Cum Laude, Le Cordon Blue graduate and Executive Research and Development Chef, for Vertical Sales and Marketing, San Ramon, CA. Chef Pogue's website is http://www.chefshelleypogue.com

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Six Ideas For Easy and Festive Holiday Cookies

Cookies are a fun food. They are small and portable; they are tasty; they make great gifts. There are literally thousands of cookie recipes out there, but for the holidays we barely have the time to decorate the house and buy the presents, let alone make five or six different cookie recipes with all sorts of different ingredients.

To solve this problem, all you need is one basic dough. From this dough come all sorts of possibilities. As a matter of fact, present a platter of all the cookies, and no one will know that they all came from the same dough! Variations are limited only by your imagination, and here is the basic dough as well as six variations to get you started.

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Basic Cookie Dough

3 cups all purpose flour
¾ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 ¼ c. sugar
1 egg
½ teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons cream or half and half

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Add the egg, vanilla and dairy. Mix until smooth.

With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients in three or four additions, mixing until just combined and the dough pulls away from the sides of the mixer bowl.

Finish according to directions in the following variations.
Cut-Out Sugar Cookies

Divide dough in two pieces. Roll each piece between two sheets of parchment paper to a thickness of about 3/16". Stack rolled doughs on a cookie sheet and refrigerate until firm. Peel off top layer of parchment and cut into desired shapes. Place shapes one inch apart, and bake at 350 degrees, F, on parchment-lined cookie sheets for about 10 minutes, or until just browning on the edges. Let cool for two minutes on the cookie sheet, and then transfer to a rack to cool completely. Ice and decorate as desired.

Lemon-Iced Cookies

Make these changes to the basic dough:
Reduce vanilla to ¼ teaspoon and add ¼ teaspoon of lemon extract plus the zest of two lemons. Roll dough into logs about 1" in diameter. Wrap in parchment and chill at least two hours.

Slice dough about 3/16" thick and place one inch apart on parchment lined cookie sheets. Bake at 350 degrees, F, until just starting to brown around the edges. While still warm, brush on a glaze made from powdered sugar and a pinch of salt with enough fresh lemon juice to make a drizzling consistency.

Chocolate Cut-Out Sugar Cookies

Make these changes to the basic dough:
Reduce flour to 2 2/3 cups and add 1/3 cup of cocoa powder. Dissolve ½ teaspoon instant coffee granules in the dairy.

Roll and bake as directed for Cut-Out Sugar Cookies. Decorate as desired.

Spice Cookies

Make these changes to the basic dough:
To the dry ingredients, add ½ teaspoon cinnamon and ¼ teaspoon allspice (or to taste). Omit the egg.

Roll dough into ¾" balls. Roll each ball in cinnamon sugar. Place about 1 ½ inches apart on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Press each ball down lightly to flatten slightly, and bake at 350 degrees, F, until edges are just beginning to brown. Let cool on the sheet for two minutes, and then remove to a rack to cool completely.

Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies

Make these changes to the basic dough:

Reduce white sugar to ½ cup. Add ½ cup of packed brown sugar. Stir in 6 oz. mini chocolate chips.

Follow shaping and baking directions for lemon-iced cookies.

Pecan Crescents

Make these changes to the basic dough:

Reduce white sugar to ½ cup. Add ½ cup powdered sugar. Reduce flour to 2 ½ cups. Add ½ cups of finely ground pecans and ¼ cups of toasted, chopped pecans. Omit the egg.

Form dough into ¾" balls and shape each ball into a crescent shape. Place cookies about 1" apart on parchment-lined baking sheets, and bake at 325 degrees until cookies are firm. Do not let the cookies brown.

While still warm, roll cookies in additional powdered sugar.

Instead of rolling the cookies in powdered sugar, drizzle each cookie (or dip half of each cookie) with some melted chocolate coating or tempered chocolate.

From one basic cookie dough, here are six cookies you can create. And the best part is, nobody never needs to know how easy it was. So, what are you waiting for? Fill that cookie jar or gift baskets with homemade cookies!

Six Ideas For Easy and Festive Holiday Cookies

Jennifer Field spent years as a special education teacher until she left education to pursue a culinary career. After graduating from Orlando Culinary Academy Le Cordon Bleu Program with a degree in Patisserie and Baking, Chef Jennifer worked in professional fine dining kitchens as pastry sous chef and pastry chef. She currently marries her two passions, teaching and baking, through her website.

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View her new blog at http://onlinepastrychef.wordpress.com/

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