cinnamon and white chocolate cantucci.

Cantucci strikes again.

This time, I've tried a new combination: cinnamon and white chocolate bits.


I apologize for the lack of a macro shot.

My original plan was to do a pistachio-white chocolate combination, but then I realized how expensive they were (last time there was a 2-for sale). The white chocolate bar was only 89p, and I had the other ingredients at home, so that pretty much determined what the outcome would be.

They tasted pretty fabulous. Ariel was a huge fan. One of my other flatmates even paid me for one. The cinnamon flavor was quite subtle (I should've added maybe another teaspoon). You could definitely taste the white chocolate; unfortunately, I forgot how sweet white chocolate is, so I didn't decrease the amount of sugar I put in....aka this was DEFINITELY a dessert (as opposed to a morning coffee accompaniment). Well, at least I know now so that when I make the pistachio-white chocolate batch, I should balance out the sweetness.

I wish I took a photo of the plain (amaretto/vanilla) batch that I made for a friend's whiskey tasting party. They were literally two-bite size and absolutely adorable!

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chocolate-filled cantucci.

I've been slacking on posts lately, but I'm just going to blame it on the time-consuming project I've been working on in school.

Haz and Toni had their birthdays on the same week, so I decided to make a special batch of cantucci for both of them. I just made normal amaretto cantucci...and before the second bake, I hollowed them out a little. After the second bake, I let them cool and then melted some delightful Cadbury's Bourneville dark chocolate and filled the little guys up. After they cooled again, the chocolate got semi-soft to hard...perfect for a crunchy cookie. They were kind of delicious.



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lady grey cantucci.

BAKING EXPERIMENT TAKE 1:


So obviously I've been having a field day with this whole cantucci thing. I think I got really excited because they came out so well...and they're really fun to make/bake.

Today I attacked the "extract" concept. After copious amounts of googling, I came upon the conclusion that I would just have to wing it. Awesome!

I began with attempting to make a liquid extract. I took two lady gray tea bags and soaked them in 3ish teaspoons of hot water. I added this to a slightly modified version of the usual recipe (among other alternations, I halved the recipe in case I failed miserably). The batter didn't taste any different, really. So I continued adding dry to the wet as I thought about what to do next.

I ripped open a new bag of lady grey and sprinkled the actual tea all over the dough. It looked nice, so I just popped those kids in the oven.



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first post: cantucci.

Buonasera!

After much personal debate, I've decided to start a food blog. I haven't had much luck with keeping up blogs (see: No Abhorrence for Florence and The Scot Spot), so it's kind of a big deal that I've started another one. This time there's a bit more motivation behind it, so I hope it'll go well.


Lately I've really gotten into baking cantucci. I made them once before, but that was with whole wheat flour...and they came out kind of hearty and not exactly what I was hoping. So I tried again.

I went out and splurged on a bottle of amaretto (Disaronno). The purchase was totally legal because I'm in Scotland; unfortunately, this shit would not fly (would not have flown?) in the States. Then I got to work and voilà, Amaretto-Cranberry-Walnut Cantucci:




The taste was pretty good! It could've done without the walnuts though. I don't know what it is about them, but I think they taste waxy in cookies sometimes. The logs were fairly large...about the size of the biscotti you'd buy in cafes. Excited by the results, I decided to make some more a week later:



These Amaretto-Vanilla-Hazelnut Cantucci were FANTASTIC. While the cranberry ones were slightly lacking in sweetness, the hazelnut ones were perfect. I also left them in the oven for a bit longer, so they came out a little browner...which I think is nice. They go wonderfully with a cup of coffee (I'm totally into coffee again).

Next batch will include pistachios, I think. x