I love King Arthur Flour! They make a wonderful flour product which I use for all my recipes, whether baking or cooking. But I also like them because of the way they engage with their fans. I follow kingarthurflour on Instagram and they really do interact with their fans. I can't tell you the number of times they have liked some of my Instagram shots. (Follow friendsfoodfam and kingarthurflour on Instagram)
This is very important to me because during the day I am a Senior Business Advisor with the MA Small Business Development Center Network. One of my roles is teaching social media marketing to small businesses. I tell my clients all the time...you need to like, comment and share. You want to engage with your customers and clients. Cultivate your super fan! When companies like King Arthur Flour engage with their customers, who can be food bloggers (like me) who use their product all the time, they want to spread the word. I don't need much to activate my "super fan" powers but a "like" or a "comment" from a major brand is really all I need.
So, now the real story...this year, I am highlighting ingredients that I like for the holiday season and one ingredient happens to be pistachios. As I was looking for pistachio cookie recipes, I happened to be on Instagram and right in front of me was King Arthur's Cherry Pistachio Biscotti. PERFECT - pistachio nuts (green), cherries (red), biscotti that looks festive, I need to try this recipe. I checked the pantry, I had all the ingredients and even had some gold sparkling sugar.
These cookies were extremely easy to put together and within 30 minutes, I had the biscotti out of the oven and cooling. They smelled delightful. The best part of making biscotti is cutting it for the second baking and eating the ends. It allows me to test them without eating a bunch of cookies. Because I make so many cookies during the holiday - just this weekend I made 7 different types of cookies - you can actualy get tired of eating cookies. But I will say, "those biscotti ends were delicious." The tartness of the cherries, the nuttiness of the pistachios and the crunchy sugar make for a really amazing biscotti.
I posted the picture of the dried cherry pistachio biscotti on Sunday and everyone is looking for the recipe. Well here it is - go forth and start your holiday baking. Make sure you include these cookies - your friends and family will LOVE you!
PS - My son just came walking through and grabbed a few biscotti, "Mom, these are REALLY good!"
Cherry Pistachio Biscotti (Adapted from King Arthur Flour)
Ingredients:
3/4 cup of butter, softened
1-1/3 cups of sugar
3/4 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 tablespoon of baking powder
4 eggs
4 cups of flour (King Arthur, of course!)
2 cups of pistachio nuts, coarsely chopped
2 cups of dried cherries, coarsely chopped (if you don't have dried cherries, you can use dried cranberries)
Demerara or sparkling sugar
Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease three large cookie sheets.
2. In a large bowl (I use a Kitchen Aid Mixer), beat the butter, sugar, salt, vanilla and baking powder on medium high for until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
3. Add the four eggs, two at a time and beat until well blended.
4. On low speed, blend the flour into the mixture. Once the flour is incorporated, add the dried cherries and pistachios.
5. Using your hands, roll two logs per tray - 12-13 inches long, 2 inches wide and 1 inch thick. Flatten them slightly. Sprinkle tops with demerara sugar or sparkling sugar.
6. Bake for 20 minutes or until the logs are slightly golden and firm to the touch.
7. Remove from oven and allow logs to cool on the tray for 20 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees.
8. Remove logs from the trays and using a serrated knife, cut the logs on a diagonal into 1 inch slices.
9. Place biscotti onto the cookie trays and bake for 10 minutes. This will help to make the biscotti crispy. If you like more of a chewy biscotti, don't bake a second time.
10. This makes about 60 delicious biscotti.
By Tricia White
