In my Christmas kitchen, December 2016

‘Twas three weeks before Christmas, and in the Napoli house,
the KitchenAid was stirring, much faster than a mouse.
Pretty boxes were laid with paper doillies with care,
Wouldn’t St Nicholas have a feast if he arrived there.

I think St Nicholas would be pretty delighted if he stumbled into my kitchen in the midst of my frenzy of Christmas sweet making in my kitchen. At this time of year, I love to make biscuits and sweets to give to friends, the boys’ school teachers, work colleagues, and clients. It is even more fun hand delivering them.

This weekend’s haul included crostoli, recipe here

Some moreish little whiskey biscuits, recipe here

Almond bread, which turned out particularly fantastic, I had to put it quickly in boxes before I ate it all, recipe here

And some pistachio biscotti, recipe here.

After that I needed to sit down for a bit.

Fortunately, with all the eggs I needed, our chooks have been going great guns, each of them laying every single day for the last ten days or so.  One of the girls (my bet is on Lily), has been laying some whopper eggs.  We were pretty impressed with this 88 grammer a week ago

But then, last Friday morning out of the nesting box came this one, 105 grams! I liken this to giving birth to a 14 pound baby, and I’m surprised whoever laid it didn’t sit down for a week to recover. But no, she laid the next day too.

Here is the Monster Egg as we called it pictured next to a 70 gram egg, which is considered “extra large” in the supermarket.  It is exactly fifty percent more in weight. And here it is in my hand, to give you a feel. I’m hoping this means the girls are happy!

I hope you are having a lovely December in your corner of the world.  Have a peak at other kitchens in the In My Kitchen series, hosted by Lovely Liz at Bizzy Lizzy’s Good Things.

Buon Natale from the Napoli Household.

Almond and Lemon Biscotti

I was inspired to make these after seeing Silvia Colloca make them on her new SBS show.   However the sugar seemed like an awful lot, so I reduced the quantity, and you could probably go even a little less if you didn’t want them too sweet. Some brandy thrown in would work well too!

Ingredients
2 whole eggs
3 egg yolks
300 g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
450 g self-raising flour, sifted
1 tbsp melted butter
pinch of salt flakes
finely grated zest of 2 lemons
200 g blanched almonds

Making them

• Preheat your oven to 170°C fan-forced and line a large baking tray with baking paper.
• Place the eggs, egg yolks, sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl and beat until pale and creamy. Add the butter, lemon zest and salt and combine.
• Fold in the flour, then gently fold in the nuts
• Divide the dough into two and using floured hands form two logs the length of your baking tray. Place the logs on the prepared tray, spaced well apart to allow for spreading, and bake for 30 minutes or until well risen and pale golden.
• Remove from the oven and cool at room temperature for 3–5 minutes, and using a serrated knife, cut them on an angle into 1–1.5 cm thick slices.
• Arrange the slices on the lined tray and return to the oven for 5 minutes. Turn them over and toast for a further 5 minutes or until crisp and golden. Cool at room temperature, then eat! Store in an airtight container.

 

Pistachio Biscotti

These easy to make biscotti are delicious.  Next time I want to try throwing in a tablespoon of limoncello.

Ingredients
60g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
Finely grated rind of 2 small lemons
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
180g natural unshelled natural pistachios
2 1/2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarb of soda
1 egg, extra

Making it
1. Cream butter, sugar, vanilla, and lemon. Add the 3 eggs one at a time until combined
2. Fold in flour, baking powder, bicarb, and nuts. Cover and refrigerate for 45 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
4. Halve the dough, shape into logs and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake for 20 minutes, remove from oven and reduce temperature to 160 degrees.
5. Allow logs to cool for 10 minutes, then slice into biscuits using a serrated knife, place on baking trays and bake for a further 15-20 minutes.