Welcome to Project Paratha

This blog will chronicle our one year adventure to eat one Indian (or Indian inspired) meal or snack every day.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Holiday Pizzelle

Pizzelle are a traditional Italian waffle-like cookie made to celebrate annual festivals.  The word meads small flat round.  The tricks to a good pizzelle include a sturdy iron and a reliable recipe.   The origin of these cookies dates back to the 8th century in the south-central area of Abruzzi (now Abruzzo).

This is another recipe that can cross over ethnic palates and go fusion if you'd like.  I made about 50 of these yesterday for the kids using the following recipe.  They came out perfect which means thin enough to have a crispy snap when you bite into them, not too sweet, with hints at the key spices, and of course not too oily (which can be a problem if you use a traditional recipe with butter - which as you'll see below we substitute for...)

Batter Recipe:
5 eggs
3 teaspoon of almond extract (traditional recipes call for anise or anise seed)
2 table spoons of baking powder
1 cup of canola oil (standard is to use butter - which I think makes the dough cloying and greasey)
1 handful of coco or chocolate chips
4 pinches of cinnamon
1 1/2 cups of sugar (2 brown and one white or 2 brown and some honey) - don't go for all white processed sugar it will make the batter way too gritty no matter how you mix it
1 twist of some citrus - orange or lemon
3 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons of garam masala, red hot pepper (if you are ok with sweet and hot mixed together)

Cooking:
Heat your iron or pizzelle maker for about 5 minutes, batter should make a sizzling sound when touched to the iron.
Press about a teaspoon of batter in each mold for 1 1/2 minutes.  Allow cookies to cool on a rank individually first.  Hold stacking them until they are not hot.

Cheers.

1 comment:

  1. I must say that these pizzelle are so inventive and delicious. I am usually a purist about pizzelle, only anise seeds and anise flavoring allowed. But Michael's spicing here is just right and makes these pizzelle a new classic.

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