If you are following me on Instagram, you would know that I have won a years supply of American pistachios by participating in a photography contest. I was fortunate to receive abundance. It was 21 kg of pistachios and you can not imagine my excitement.  It was excitingly funny and I wasn’t sure how to react. I was clueless about how to store them, how to use them. Later I did a pistachio potluck at home, shared my bounty with near and dears. 

Today I am left with a decent amount of pistachios, which my fridge can hold and I will be gradually using them. Pistachios are great to use, in many recipes and now I am discovering more about pistachios. 

By the way here is the picture of pistachio beet salad which won the contest. 

These Pistachio Cranberry Cookies turned out extremely yummy. It’s buttery and gives a melt in the mouthfeel, closer to shot crust cookies. The texture however is close to the Indian bakery-style biscuits. I am an enthusiastic votary of our classic Indian bakery biscuits anyways. They hold a childhood nostalgia for me. 

The pistachio speaks out loud in this recipe, it’s quite prominent and the ruby-like cranberries give a very balancing contrast to the buttery sweetness of the cookies. 

The method is quite easy, you will be able to make these at home. I have attached a recipe video, so it gets easy for anyone to understand the whole process. 

Here are a few pointers I would like to share with you. Just go through them before starting out with the recipe. 

The recipe begins with butter. Make sure that the butter is at room temperature. So it is easier to cream. This is a very essential step to achieve the right texture in these cookies. 

Creaming evenly disperses the sugar throughout the batter, completely dissolving it into the butter. It also increases volume by mixing thoroughly and incorporating more air into the batter. Which results in lighter textured cookies. 

For sugar, you can take castor sugar or take regular sugar from your kitchen and run it in a blender for finer grains. 

Try measuring the ingredients on a kitchen scale rather than using measuring cups. For baking measuring by weight is always a better idea. It always serves satisfying results, eliminating minor errors. If you are a baker or you want to pursue the path buying a kitchen weighing scale is a good investment. 

Using custard powder will help you achieve a better texture, similar to Indian bakery-style biscuits. You can substitute it with cornstarch. But vanilla custard will add an aura of glorious vanilla to the cookie dough. 

When you bring the cookie dough together, make sure not to overwork it. This means, don’t over mix the dough. Otherwise, cookies can turn out tough in texture. 

You can chill the dough ball for some time before rolling it out. If your kitchen is hot and you find it difficult to manage.

Otherwise rolling between two sheets of parchment paper doesn’t give any trouble. It is the easiest way to manage buttery doughs. 

Before baking, it is so important to chill the shaped cookies. Or they can lose the shape in the oven and they can spread into thin uneven blobs. 

Chilling cookie dough before baking solidifies the fat in the cookies. As the cookies bake, the fat in the chilled cookie dough takes longer to melt than room-temperature fat. The cookies start to bake from the outside first and hold the given shape. 

And the longer the fat remains solid, the fewer cookies spread.

Preheating the oven is very important. Lining the baking tray with parchment paper is important too. Or use a silicone mat. 

If you are looking for a good blender, this is what I use for my family of four.

Eggless Mocha Muffins

Whole Wheat Bourbon Biscuits

Tiramisu

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