These biscuits are of delicious flavour and texture. Roll them out as thinly as you can to use as accompaniment to soft desserts and ice cream but great to eat as normal biscuits/shortbread too. Just adjust the baking time.
Ingredients (makes 25)
- 100g pistachios
- 100g unsalted butter, soft
- 50g caster sugar
- 125g plain flour
- 25g corn flour
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ lemon, zest only
Method
Preheat the oven to 180 0 C. Roast the pistachios for 7 minutes and leave to cool. Put the pistachios in a bag and use a rolling pin to break up. It is lovely to have uneven pieces in the biscuits so you don’t want to over-crush them but you also want to be able to handle and shape the dough.
In a bowl beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract, lemon zest and pistachios and mix with a spatula adding the flour to the bowl. Use your hands to mix everything lightly and quickly. Don’t overwork the dough. Make a ball, flatten it slightly with your hands and put it in the fridge for 5 minutes.
Weigh and take 15g at a time in your hands and roll it into a ball. Use your palms to flatten the dough as much as you can (it does not matter that it is not going to be totally round) and put on a lined baking tray. For thinner, round biscuits, I used a glass with a flat bottom to squeeze and flatten the biscuit but then used my chef’s knife to slide it off the glass bottom as it tends to stick because of the butter. For longer shapes, I used the sides of a round cutter to roll the dough. Dust whatever you are using with a little cornflour to stop the dough sticking.
Leave the biscuits in the fridge for 15 minutes and then bake for 12-13 minutes until pale golden.