I love a good cookie exchange but since I don’t exactly need tons more sweets in the house, I was thrilled to happen upon the International Holiday Cookie Exchange, organised by Adrienne of Gastroanthropology and Lori of Fake Food Free. Participating bloggers were assigned a partner who sent them a recipe to make and post about by December 15th. A roundup of the goodies will be up later this week and I can’t wait to see what everyone made! I sent the recipe for Cranberry Pistachio Blondies to Michele at 5am Foodie and her post is beautiful!
I received the very unique recipe for Beijos de Dama from Valentina at Trembom. I had never tried them before so it was a fun project. I decided to put my own spin on the recipe, using peanuts instead of Brazil nuts because I liked the idea of a peanut shortbread dipped in or drizzled with chocolate!
I actually had a lot of trouble with this recipe – I found it to be super dry and ended up adding an extra egg yolk to the mix. It was still pretty crumbly but I managed to roll the dough and cut it. They are pretty “shortbread-y” but overall I was really pleased with how they came out. The peanut flavour is subtle and does not hit you over the head and the chocolate (I used semi-sweet) a perfect hit of sweetness.
Ingredients
1/2 cup of sugar
3/4 cup raw peanuts, ground
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
2 egg yolks – push them through a sieve to remove the ‘skin’ that leaves the strong eggy smell
Icing
100g dark chocolate, chopped
Method
Preheat the oven – 180C/350F. Grease and flour a cookie sheet (or line with parchment paper).
Prepare the dough: sieve the sugar in a bowl, add the Brazil nut, the flour and the butter. User your fingers to mix it all together until it resembles crumbs. Add the egg yolks and use the tips of your fingers to mix it all until you get uniform dough.
(I ended up rolling my dough between two sheets of wax paper – it was extremely crumbly).
Make little balls with the dough – around 2cm each. (I could not get the dough to roll into balls so I used a cookie cutter).
Arrange them on the baking sheet keeping them a bit apart. Bake for approximately 15 minutes until golden brown. Transfer to a rack to cool.
For the icing: Temper your chocolate. You can either half-dip the cookies in the melted chocolate and place on wax paper to set in a cool place or and pour the chocolate into a piping bag. Place the cookies on a sheet of waxed paper and drizzle the chocolate over or pipe shapes as you like.
These are cookies you won’t want to share, but since t’is the season and all, I am bringing them to work to share with colleagues today. Because we can all use some cookies on the third last day before the winter holidays, right?
Incredible!! The cookies look so tasty and tempting 🙂
they look perfect! may I have some??? (^_^)
I love making shortbread and sugar cookies and am always trying out new twists on recipes, but have never made peanut ones before. Given that I love peanuts and chocolate together, I will have to try these out. Your photos are gorgeous and I would quite like to eat one of them right now!
Yes this is a combo that works really well!
They look wonderful! Thanks for sharing ~ FaithRider
they look lovely and sound delicious! i always love trying new things this time of year. it’s a good time to pick up new recipes!
Isn’t it a great thing collecting new recipes?
You’re way more generous than me – I would eat them all myself! Is it really almost the holidays??
No really, I *so* don’t need any more treats!
These are adorable. And they look delicious!
I’m not normally a fan of crunchy cookies, but in the winter, there’s nothing I love more than a cup of tea and a biscuit or a cookie.
Me neither but shortbread falls into its own category I find…
Your co-workers are going to be delighted with you yet again. The shortbread looks great and your photo presentation is beautiful. Checked Michele’s post too and she did a great job with your blondies recipe. Lovely post.
Isn’t is a fun idea?
Stunning photos and very festive looking cookies!
They look very delicious. And I agree — the photos are beautiful. I’m going to make a cup of coffee right now so I can virtually dunk them.
Ah, a virtual dunk! Love it!
I like short-bready cookies, I think I would definitely like these. Lovely photos. (And thank you for your comment about Pete on my blog, I am blown away at the support I got.)
Trix, you are so welcome. Yes, these are winners!
That sounds like a fun idea!!! I hope I remember this for next year. I was thinking it would be cool to do a foodie book club after the holidays are over and we all get our lives back, but logistically it would be difficult to ‘discuss’ books so to speak. It might be nice to do it like Dorie Greenspan’s? The booksellers would love that I bet. They would get a spike in sales that day for sure! Maybe they would sponsor us.
I love the idea of a foodie book club but am not sure I could cope with the time commitment for that….
This is such a fantastic idea! I love it!
Those truly look delicious!
That’s so fun! I can’t wait to see the round up
I’ve always got peanuts at home and love the idea of a peanut shortbread! Love the shapes and they look so festive.
Cheers and thanks for organising! You def need to try these!
These sound wonderful and they look beautiful – what an absolutely great idea to do a “recipe” cookie exchange!!!
Yes I am looking forward to all the recipes so I can add them to my repertoire!
It looks like you recovered from any culinary malfunctions and enjoyed your exchange experience. The first picture is so festive!
Jason
Thanks – it’s amazing what a trip to the dollar store can do for your photos!
What a fun project! We have the same cookies you got to make in Italy (baci di dama) but it is true….they can be weird cookies if you don’t have the right recipe. Once I tried to make them and mine instead totally smashed. You did a great job. I’m glad you were able to fix the recipe 🙂
Me too. I am not terribly gifted in the baking department!
Now that’s a fun thing to do and a great project. Your cookies look superb, now….. could you please pass me one 😉
Yes it’s a nice twist on the regular cookie exchange!
They look so delicious dipped and drizzle in chocolate. The cookie exchange is a great idea!
Isn’t it great? You get to try out a new recipe and don’t end up with 15 000 cookies to eat!
I will happily send you my address if you prefer not to eat too many of these. We have many hungry cookie eaters at our house. 🙂
LOL! It’s times like this that I wish I had kids of my own!
Oh! Missed out on this! Will loved to have joined… another time I hope. Now I shall wait for the round up for all the cookie ideas.
Next year!
Lovely Christmas cookies. Just reading your dry dough issue, funny I was having the same issue with some pastry dough today. Ugh. 🙂 Glad these turned out good. I feel like a cookie now.
Pastry and dough are not my friends in general so i am glad this worked out!
This looks so good. I love the recipe.
Those cookies look lovely! I love the pretty chocolate drizzle.
Thanks and it’s not even too messy!
Oh, I love your touch to this recipe. They are indeed very shortbread like. Brazil nuts are a tad oilier than peanut butter. The chocolate addition just dressed them up very pretty indeed, and the start shape gives it a lovely holiday feel. I am heading home for the holidays and I will definitely be making those with my mom. o ) Love family baking – don’t get much of an opportunity to do that. Happy Xmas to you and yours!! Lucky the ones who are getting some cookies.
Yes I wondered about the oil content being the culprit but I am glad I worked it out in the end! Thanks for the recipe!
How very nice of you to share these little marvels with your colleagues, however I think they would be appreciated even more by a certain little person who doesn’t get to enjoy a winter break from work. [hint, hint] 🙂
Oh no poor you Josie! I am sure you will be baking up a storm at your house though?
Love your photos and the festive display. The cookies look so great and I like your creative twist. Thanks so much for participating!
Thanks for hosting – it’s a very fun idea!