Chocolate & Pistachio Spread

Recently, I've been feeling like time has been slipping through my fingers. The more I plan to do with it, the less I seem to have. Meal planning has dissappeared. I have a backlog of emails so big I'm starting to worry that people will think I'm frankly being rude by not replying. April is coming at an alarming rate. April means people will start saying "Oh! You get married next month". I am scared of April. Purely because I have a to-do list the size of my arm. The majority of which I wanted to get done in March.

This was supposed to be my entry for We Should Cocoa. I made it before the deadline but missed posting it. Massively. You can see the previous month's round up here.

I'm making another batch of this tonight. Purely to be used as a sugar hit to keep me going through the weekend - it's hen party time.

Ingredients
100gr shelled pistachios
150gr good milk chocolate, either grated or pre-blitzed in the blender
1tbsp cocoa
3 tbsp clear, runny honey
1tbsp oil (Olive oil, flavourless, nut, whatever your hands hit first)

Method
1, Blanch the pistachios in boiling water, to remove the brownish skin they retain after shelling, for a couple of minutes before straining and rubbing in a clean tea towel. Give them a quick rinse, shake off any excess water and tip them into your blender.
2, Pulse the nuts, scraping down the sides and breaking up any clumps with a spatula until they are finely ground. You can blitz them as little or as much as you like, I actually prefer mine to have a little bit of texture.
3, Add in the milk chocolate and cocoa and pulse to combine.
4, With the blender running, pour in the honey and oil. The oil is there simply to act as a spreading agent - it keeps it soft in the fridge, otherwise you'll be cutting chunks onto your toast. (This happened in the test-run. I wasnt exactly devasted though - it was delicious!)
5, Blend until you have a thick paste. You might need to loosen it with a bit more oil or honey - simply tweak until you get a consistency that you like. I might add a tablespoon of liqueur to my next batch.

Pistachio and Whisky Shortbread

Isn’t it funny when you make a recipe and it turns into something completely different.  This was purported to be Pistachio Biscotti.  But the recipe didn’t call for it to be twice baked and it wasn’t dry and crunchy, so in my book, it’s not biscotti.

But it is really, really tasty!  I added whisky rather than rum and that lovely smoky oaky flavour is there without the overly boozy taste.  And I love whisky. 

Adapted from here 

Ingredients

225gr butter

140gr caster sugar

1 egg yolk

2tbsp good whisky

Couple of drops of vanilla extract

280gr plain flour

100gr shelled pistachio nuts

Pinch of salt

Method

1, Beat the sugar and butter together until pale and fluff

2, Mix in the egg yolk, zest, whisky, vanilla extract and salt

3, Sift in the flour and add in the pistachio nuts and gently mix together to form a dough.

4, Form a log with the dough, wrap in clingfilm and chill for an hour to firm it up.

5, Preheat your oven to 190o/c

6, Remove the dough from the fridge and unwrap the clingfilm.  Cut into wedges about 5mm-1cm thick.  Arrange on two lined baking sheets

7, Bake for 10 minutes until just starting to turn golden brown and remove from the oven.  Leave on the baking trays for at least 10 minutes before moving onto a wire cooling rack to cool through.

8, Store in an airtight container.