Holiday season means cookie season! I love baking cookies any time of the year, but especially this time of the year it is so much more fun, and they make perfect edible gifts! It makes a fun activity with the family as well, especially baking with kids! They enjoy the process, and decorating the cookies with them is so enjoyable. I have been testing cookie recipes, and I love trying different variations with shortbreads.
Citrus zest adds so much flavor to any cookie and simply brightens up the cookie and takes it to the next level in my opinion. I love adding citrus to my cookies, especially in the holiday season. These shortbreads have orange zest and crusted pink peppercorn in them, to add a slight kick and fruity taste. Also the dough looks so pretty with the red and orange specks throughout! I decided to switch things up by cutting them into little fluted squares rather than rounds to change them up a bit. The flavor combo that I had in mind was orange/pistachio/chocolate! How does that sound? DIVINE RIGHT!? I am with you 😉 The cookie is dipped half in bittersweet chocolate and allowed to harden in the deep freezer for a minute. I wanted to jazz them up a bit, so I used a NEW toothbrush and sprayed edible gold paint on the chocolate portion. It gives a tiny bit of sparkle and makes it look so festive!
The buttercream sandwiched between the 2 cookies is made using pistachio paste. I did not have pistachio paste, but it is readily available online at the link here. It does save a LOT OF time if you buy the pistachio paste. You can search for the brand Love ‘n Bake Pistachio Nut Paste. I made my own pistachio paste using a Pierre Herme recipe that I found online, the link is here. The buttercream is extremely flavorful and combined with the orange and chocolate, this combination is utterly divine!
I love this combo of Orange and Pistachio! Last year, I had made an Orange and Cardamom Pistachio Praline Babka which was so delicious with my morning tea! Funnily enough I did not use any spices in this cookie, which is so unlike me. I wanted to let the other flavors stand out more and not have the spices interfere in this cookie.
My kids really enjoyed this cookie, and have been wanting it in their lunch box! They love showing off their cookies to their friends. It is really cute, when they appreciate what I make, and say comments like “mommy you make the best food ever!” or “mommy, your desserts are amazing!”.
These cookies make beautiful edible gifts, and I hope you get to try making them. They are pretty easy to make, bake and assemble! And you could use your own imagination to decorate them.
I probably have a couple more cookie sessions to go, and a couple of desserts lined up until the end of the year. This year is coming to an end so soon, and I am feeling kinda surreal about it. Always hoping that the next year is better than this year, personally and professionally. 🙂
Signing off!
Love
XO
Amisha
Orange-Pink Peppercorn Shortbread Sandwich Cookie with a Pistachio Buttercream
Ingredients
- Makes about 15 sandwich cookies:
- Orange-Pink Peppercorn Shortbread:
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1/3 cup almond flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1 stick butter at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp orange zest
- 1 1/2 finely crushed pink peppercorns
- Buttercream icing:
- 1 stick butter at room temperature
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoon pistachio paste
- green food coloring to get the pistachio green color
- Chocolate coating:
- 1 1/2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips(I used Ghirardelli)
- 1 tsp coconut oil
Instructions
- Orange-Pink Peppercorn Shortbread
- In a mixer bowl, add in the butter, sugar, orange zest and mix till well blended for about 1 minute. Add in the vanilla extract. Blend again. Add in the flours, pink peppercorn, salt and mix again until incorporated.
- In a plastic wrap, add in the dough and cover it and shape it into a disk about 1 inch thick. Chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour atleast.
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
- Remove from the fridge, and roll out the dough on a floured surface into 1/2 cm thick. Cut out whatever shape you want with cutters. Place on a baking sheet with parchment paper, and into the oven for about 10-12 minutes until the shortbread cookies are light golden brown in color.
- Remove from the oven and let cool.
- For the Buttercream icing:
- In a medium bowl, add in the butter and pistachio paste, and whip it with a hand mixer for 1 minute. Add the vanilla extract. Add in the powdered sugar and slowly mix it so that the sugar does not spread everywhere! Increase the speed gradually to medium to mix the sugar with the butter for 1 minute, until well blended.
- In a 12 inch pastry bag, with a Wilton 221 star tip inserted, add in the buttercream into the bag, twist and close it tight by pushing the buttercream down as much as possible. Keep it aside inverted in a tall glass.
- Heat water in a small saucepan, and let it boil. Put a small glass bowl that does not touch the water, but is big enough to sit on the saucepan. Add in the chocolate chips and coconut oil, and stir occasionally, until all is melted. This method is called Bain Marie so as not to burn the chocolate. It should be smooth.
- Dip half of each cookie into the chocolate to coat it, let the excess drip off completely by shaking the cookie. Let it rest on a clean parchment paper. Do the same for the rest of the cookies. Put the tray in the freezer for about a minute for the chocolate to set.
- Turn half the cookies upside down, and pipe half of them with the buttercream.
- Press the top of the cookie onto the piped cookie, and its ready to eat!
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