Baklava with Walnuts and Almonds

February 23, 2018

Syrup desserts are popular from the Eastern Mediterranean through the Arabian Peninsula. Among syrup desserts, baklava is one of my favorites.

I rarely make baklava but the first time I did was junior year in college. That same recipe is the one that I still make.

Styles of baklava vary. More nuts. Less nuts. More syrup. Less syrup. Different aromatics. While I like them all, I tend towards the more Arabic preparations which, in my experience, include more nuts and syrup than their more restrained Greek counterparts.

Perhaps that’s why a friend, of Greek heritage, said that my baklava didn’t look like anything a Greek ever made! Admittedly, however, the recipe came from a Greek and I think I have been true to the recipe but, hey, I’m not Greek so who am I to say what could have come out of a Greek kitchen.

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I spent much of 2010 living in Dubai. The consulting company that I started in the mid 1990’s landed a contract with the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Health in late 2009. In January 2010 I moved to Dubai.

**A view of one part of the kitchen in my Dubai apartment**

Shopping for food in Dubai is just amazing. The sheer number of expats (at the time it was estimated that 95% of the people living in Dubai were expats!) means that the supermarkets are truly multinational affairs, even the relatively small ones.

It was rare that I could not find brands with which I was familiar. I’m sure expats from almost every country had the same experience. The supermarkets were stocked with brands from around the world. It truly was the most amazing grocery shopping I have ever experienced outside of the food halls at Harrods and KaDeWe. But remember, Harrods and KaDeWe are most decidedly upscale affairs. In Dubai I was just going to the (plain, ordinary) supermarket!

**A small section of the food hall at KaDeWe in Berlin** (By Blorg (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons)

I spend a week in Germany during the summer of 2010, right in the middle of my Dubai experience. I found shopping in German supermarkets to be a much more “foreign” affair than shopping in the supermarkets in Dubai. Rarely was there a brand I recognized in Germany. Shopping involved intense reading of labels because I was not familiar with the products and their contents…or their quality.

**A view of the Arabian Gulf and the man-made Palm Jumeriah Island in the distance from my apartment**

Produce in Dubai could be hit or miss due to the distance most of it traveled. Although there was a nascent horticultural industry in Dubai, I could never find truly local produce. On several occasions I tried to find a store that purported to sell local produce but my driver could never locate it, even with the address!

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The closest we had to “local” produce was from Iran, the source of Romaine lettuce and cauliflower, as I recall, among other produce. Considering that Iran and the United Arab Emirates are only 90 miles away at their closest point, and considering how far produce can travel in North America from fields in California to the Northeast, 90 miles really counts as local, even if there is an international border among two not-so-friendly countries involved!

**Another view from the apartment looking at Dubai Marina**

In the supermarkets, prepared food counters overflowed with Middle Eastern items and my fridge was always stocked with hummus, pita with zatar, olives, and other meze.

I also had access to world-class syrup desserts, including baklava!!!

Another fascinating aspect of most of larger supermarkets in Dubai was the existence of a room at the back that was usually labeled with something like “Pork for Non-Muslims.” In this space once could find the most amazing cured pork products from Italy, Spain, and Europe in general!

Alas, items containing alcohol were difficult to obtain. This included vanilla extract. The available non-alcohol-based “extract” was just not the same. Luckily vinegar was just as good, even if it was labeled “Grape Vinegar” rather than “Wine Vinegar!”

I hope you enjoy this baklava. Just don’t make it for a Greek friend!

If you have a favorite family recipe and a bit of a story to tell, please email me at santafecook@villasentieri.com and we can discuss including it in the blog. I am expanding the scope of my blog to include traditional recipes from around the country and around the world. If you haven’t seen Bertha’s Flan or Melinda’s Drunken Prunes, take a look. They will give you an idea of what I’m looking for.

Baklava with Walnuts and Almonds

Try to find phyllo that is either 9” x 13” or 18” x 13”. If it’s the latter, cut the stack of sheets in half to make them all 9” x 13”. I have found that covering the stack of phyllo with a damp towel, as some authors recommend, after you remove every sheet isn’t necessary if you move quickly. However, before you start, moisten a dish towel and keep it handy in case there are any breaks in the action, in which case you should definitely cover the stack of unused phyllo. While it is not essential to clarify the butter, removing the milk solids will prevent uneven browning of the top of the baklava.

Course

Desserts and Sweets

Cuisine

Middle Eastern

Prep Time

1 hour

Cook Time

1 1/2 hours

Passive Time

24 hours

Servings

pieces

Ingredients

Bakalva

1 pound unsalted butter more if you are generous with buttering
1 pound phyllo thawed if frozen
1 pound blanched almonds
1 pound shelled walnuts
2/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground allspice
whole cloves

Syrup

2 small lemons zest only, cut off in strips
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
4 inches stick cinnamon broken up
4 cloves
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 cups honey
2 tablespoons Rum or Brandy

Course

Desserts and Sweets

Cuisine

Middle Eastern

Prep Time

1 hour

Cook Time

1 1/2 hours

Passive Time

24 hours

Servings

pieces

Ingredients

Bakalva

1 pound unsalted butter more if you are generous with buttering
1 pound phyllo thawed if frozen
1 pound blanched almonds
1 pound shelled walnuts
2/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground allspice
whole cloves

Syrup

2 small lemons zest only, cut off in strips
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
4 inches stick cinnamon broken up
4 cloves
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 cups honey
2 tablespoons Rum or Brandy

Instructions

Baklava

Clarify the butter.
Finely grind the almonds and walnuts.
Mix nuts, cinnamon, allspice and sugar.
Brush a 9-inch b 13-inch baking pan with butter.
Lay a sheet of phyllo and brush it with butter.
Repeat until 12 sheets have been used.
Spread a layer of nuts, approximately 1 cup, on top of the phyllo.
Cover with a sheet of phyllo, brushing it with butter.
Repeat 1 cup of nuts covered with one sheet of phyllo until all the nuts have been used up.
Top with all the remaining sheets of phyllo individually adding them and brushing each sheet with butter.
Score the top few sheets of phyllo in a diamond pattern. Cut from one corner to the opposite corner.
Make three more rows of cuts, evenly spaced, in each direction parallel to the first cut for a total of 7 cuts.
Repeat in the opposite direction.
Put a clove in the center of each diamond.
Sprinkle the top lightly with water to reduce curling while baking.
Bake 350°F for 1½ hours, until golden.
Pour hot honey syrup over the hot baklava as it comes from the oven.
The baklava is best if allowed to sit at room temperature, uncovered for about a day before serving.

Syrup

As the baklava is nearing completion, make the syrup.
Combine lemon zest, sugar, water, cinnamon, and cloves in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan.
Bring to a boil, lower heat and continue cooking without stirring until syrupy, approximately 15 minutes. (218°F to 220°F if you want to measure using a candy thermometer.)
Stir honey into hot syrup.
Remove from the heat.
Using a small strainer, remove the solids.
Reheat the syrup immediately before removing the baklava from the oven.
Stir in lemon juice and rum or brandy.

Recipe Notes

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Recipes

Torta di Riso (Italian Rice Tart)

Crostoli (Italian Fried Pastries)

17 Comments

December 26, 2017

I didn’t grow up eating crostoli.

That doesn’t mean we didn’t have our own version of fried dough.

Unlike crostoli, which are thin and crispy and leavened with baking powder, I grew up eating ovals of fried yeasted bread dough sprinkled with granulated sugar.

Frying bread dough and sprinkling it with granulated sugar is a common among Southern Italians. My mother had a name for it that I’ve never heard anywhere, it sounded something like “pitla.” I started doing some research. The word “pitta” is still used in Calabria, where my mother’s family originated, for various types of dough-based foods, including some that are quite flat. The word “pitta,” which I believe derives from the Greek word “pita,” became the word “pizza” in standard Italian. I’m guessing that “pitla” is a dialectical variation of “pitta.”

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One of the positive outcomes of doing research on Italian fried dough products is that I came across a wonderful Wikipedia page on fried dough from around the world. Check it out here.

Crostoli (or crostui in the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia region of Italy where my mother-in-law was born) are traditionally served at Christmastime. My mother-in-law says that they would sometimes have them at other times of the year when they “wanted something sweet” that was simple to make.

**My mother-in-law’s zig-zag pastry cutter**

Not growing up eating crostoli, I asked my husband to tell me what he remembered.

I got two sentences:
“We always had them at Christmas.”
“They’re not my favorite.”

There you have it, the entirety of the crostoli story in 10 words.

I even waited a couple of days and asked him again if he remembered anything else about crostoli. “Nope” was the answer.

Now we’re up to 11 words.

That might have been the end had it not been for Christmas Eve. The morning of Christmas Eve, after I mixed dough for panettone, my mother-in-law and I made up a batch of crostoli to take to Christmas Eve dinner at the home of our friends Rich DePippo and Doug Howe.

Rich’s grandfather was from Domegge di Cadore in the Veneto region of Italy, just next door to Friuli-Venezia-Giulia where my mother-in-law was born. In fact, Domegge is about 100 kilometers from Treppo Grande, my mother-in-law’s home town.

As it turns out, Rich and his mother, visiting for Christmas, also made crostoli the morning of Christmas Eve.

**Using a Microplane grater makes fast work of zesting lemons**

There were dueling crostoli served for dessert (along with pizzelle, nut roll, and biscochitos).

Rich’s were long and thin, with a slit cut in the middle through which one end of the dough was twisted before frying. This seems to be the most traditional shape that I’ve seen in my research, though Lidia Bastianich, who is also from very near where my mother-in-law was born, ties hers in a knot.

Having seen pictures of crostoli twisted and tied before embarking on making them with my mother-in-law, I asked her why hers were just left as irregular squares (well, quadrilaterals, really) of dough. That’s the way her mother made them was, of course, the first response. After which she added that she liked them to puff up, which they don’t do if they’re twisted or tied.

The other difference in the crostoli is that Rich used anisette to flavor his whereas my mother-in-law used lemon zest and vanilla.

The anisette was definitely a new twist. In researching crostoli, I’ve seen citrus, usually lemon or orange, as the most common flavoring. Often vanilla is added; sometimes brandy or rum. Never have I run into a recipe with anisette. Hopefully Rich will weigh in on his family’s recipe for crostoli and how they came to use anisette for flavoring.

Meanwhile, enjoy!

If you have a favorite family recipe and a bit of a story to tell, please email me at santafecook@villasentieri.com and we can discuss including it in the blog. I am expanding the scope of my blog to include traditional recipes from around the country and around the world. If you haven’t seen Bertha’s Flan, it will give you an idea of what I’m looking for.

Crostoli (Italian Fried Pastries)

Crostoli are pastries that re rolled thin, fried, and dusted with granulated sugar. Powdered sugar melts and becomes sticky so granulated sugar is traditional. Crostoli are usually larger than the ones shown here, something like 1 ½ inches by 3 or 4 inches. We made these smaller because they were being served as part of a dessert buffet at the end of a large meal.

Course

Desserts and Sweets

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

30 minutes

Cook Time

45 minutes

Servings

Ingredients

Course

Desserts and Sweets

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

30 minutes

Cook Time

45 minutes

Servings

Ingredients

Instructions

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, lemon zest and salt in a large bowl. Mix well.
Make a well in the center and add eggs. Using a fork, begin to incorporate the flour.
Add vanilla extract, lemon juice and incorporate.
Add melted butter.
Mix to form a soft, non-sticky dough.
When the dough becomes too stiff to mix with a fork, use your hand. Do not over knead.
Cut into four or five pieces.
Roll out less than 1/8 inch thick, dusting with a little flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking.
Cut into rectangles, approximately 1 1/2 inches by 3 inches, with a zig-zag cutter.
When all are cut, deep fry until brown. If you are not comfortable doing this from experience, use a thermometer and keep the oil at about 350 degrees Farenheit.
Sprinkle with granulated sugar as soon as they are removed from the oil so the sugar sticks.
They are best the same day but will stay fresh at least one day at room temperature, loosely covered.

Recipe Notes

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Recipes

Crostata di Noci (Italian Walnut Tart)

4 Comments

December 20, 2017

One evening in 1996 my husband and I were sitting with his parents in a dimly-lit bar in Venice. We were all chatting. I was drinking grappa, as was my father-in-law. Then the desire for dessert hit me. If you’ve spent any time in Italy you know that at no point in the day are you actually hungry. There’s just too much wonderful food around to not partake in it. So the desire for dessert had absolutely nothing to do with the need for more calories.

Going for something new, I selected Crostata di Noci. I was absolutely amazed by what I got.

The pastry was standard-issue Italian pasta frolla, a slightly sweet leavened crust that’s like a cross between shortbread cookies and a dense cake. The filling, however, tasted for all the world like nut roll, one of my favorite pastries but one that is also very time-consuming and frustrating to make.

In that instant, it all made sense. Nut roll hails from Eastern and Central Europe (as does another of my favorites, the poppy seed roll). In northeast in Italy there is a lot of Eastern European influence. Suddenly, taking nut roll filling and putting it in a pasta frolla case meant I could have something that tasted just like a nut roll but without all the frustration of actually making nut roll.

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Now, Crostata di Noci will never actually replace “real” nut roll just like making bread in my bread machine won’t replace making bread by hand. But, with a bread machine, I have homemade bread every day which wouldn’t be the case if I had to make every loaf by hand. With less than half-an-hour’s active time, I can indulge my taste for nut roll any time I want!

Around the holidays nut rolls were ubiquitous in my home town but my mother and my Aunt Margie made the best nut rolls I have ever had. Largely this is because they both put in a large proportion of sweetened nuts to dough. Honestly, there was just enough dough to roll pinwheel fashion and hold the whole thing together. Many other nut rolls were bready by comparison.

To be sure, my mother’s filling differed from my Aunt Margie’s. I’m not sure how each of them came by their respective recipes but my suspicion is that Aunt Margie’s came from her mother or another Italian relative or friend because it contained orange juice. The use of citrus in various pastries is common in Italy. Pasta frolla, for example, is traditionally flavored with lemon zest and vanilla. I am guessing my mother’s recipe came from my father’s mother or someone on the Slovak side of my family because the liquid in the nuts was milk and not orange juice.

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Separate from actually eating nut roll, there was this whole aura around making them (at least there was when I was young!). Buying shelled walnuts and using a food processor make quick work of preparing the nuts but in the 1960s, making nut roll started with my mother buying a large quantity of whole walnuts. We would sit around the table and crack the nuts open then extract the nutmeats. I still have the nutcracker and picks that we used.

After all the nuts were shelled, they needed to be ground. We did this in a hand-crank grinder of the same type used to grind meat for sausage. As a kid, I got to turn the crank on the grinder! I no longer have my mother’s grinder as it got rusty from being stored in the basement but I have my own that is pretty much identical. I got it when I was in college.

**The hand-crank grinder I got while in college**

After the excitement (well, as a kid it was pretty exciting!) of shelling and grinding the nuts we all kind of abandoned my mother who started the laborious process of actually making the nut rolls. That is definitely not a job for amateurs. The dough had to be very thin but just thick enough to contain the nuts. The nuts had to be moist, sweet, and generous in quantity compared to the amount of dough. Then the whole thing had to be rolled up and baked.

After my mother died, Aunt Margie started sending me nut roll every year. After Aunt Margie died, my cousin Donna (Aunt Margie’s daughter) picked up the nut roll mantle. The two nut rolls that I got this year will be carefully doled out over a few weeks, befitting their preciousness, starting on Christmas Eve!

**This year’s nut roll from my cousin Donna. Notice the large proportion of nuts to dough.**

If you have a favorite family recipe and a bit of a story to tell, please email me at santafecook@villasentieri.com and we can discuss it. I am expanding the scope of my blog to include traditional recipes from around the country and around the world. Take a look at Bertha’s Flan. It will give you an idea of what I’m looking for.

After returning from that trip to Venice I was determined to recreate Crostata di Noci. I whipped up a batch of Zia Fidalma’s pasta frolla and made a simple walnut filling with orange juice in a nod to the Italian origins of this particular pastry.

The first try was a winner and I haven’t really made any substantive changes in the recipe since. If one wanted a creamier filling, one could add a few tablespoons of butter but, honestly, the crostata is so rich that I haven’t felt the need to make it more so.

Until I tackle nut roll making 101 (which I swear I’m going to do one day soon!), I’ll have to settle for crostata di noci, and the occasional nut roll care package from my cousin!

Crostata di Noci (Italian Walnut Tart)

Lightly sweetened ground walnuts fill an Italian pasta frolla crust in this Venetian dessert. If you’re not a fan of walnuts you could use other nuts. If you want to make the crostata extra festive, put a paper doily on top and sprinkle it with powdered sugar to get a pattern.

Course

Desserts and Sweets

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

40 minutes

Cook Time

45 minutes

Passive Time

30 minutes, plus cooling

Servings

people

Ingredients

Pasta Frolla

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon powdered vanilla or vanilla extract
1 pinch salt
Grated zest of one lemon
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 large eggs

Nut Filling

Course

Desserts and Sweets

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

40 minutes

Cook Time

45 minutes

Passive Time

30 minutes, plus cooling

Servings

people

Ingredients

Pasta Frolla

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon powdered vanilla or vanilla extract
1 pinch salt
Grated zest of one lemon
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 large eggs

Nut Filling

Instructions

Pasta Frolla

Blend flour, sugar, baking powder, vanilla powder, salt and lemon zest in a food processor until combined.
Add the cold butter, cut in pieces.
Blend till well combined. The mixture in the food processor will appear to move as one mass though when you stop the processor you will see that it is not.
Add the eggs and vanilla extract if you are using that instead of vanilla powder and blend till it almost forms a ball.
Remove the pastry from the food processor and incorporate the final bits of flour by hand.
Wrap the dough in waxed paper and refrigerate for about 30 minutes before using.

Nut Filling

Combine all ingredients and mix well.
Cover the nut filling and keep it at room temperature while rolling out the pasta frolla.

Assembly

Roll out pasta frolla between sheets of waxed paper until it is just large enough to come up the sides of a 10" diameter by 1” tall tart pan with a removable bottom.
Trim the edges of pastry even with the top of the tart pan.
Add the filling and spread it out evenly.
The filling should come just to the top of the tart pan.
Bake the crostata at 350°F for approximately 45 minutes or until crust is golden brown.
Cool and remove the sides of the tart pan.
The crostata can be sprinkled with powdered sugar for serving and/or accompanied by lightly sweetened whipped cream.

Recipe Notes

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Recipes

Aunt Margie’s Colored Cookies

6 Comments

December 15, 2017

We called them “Colored Cookies.”

I’ve never seen them anywhere but in my hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania though I can’t believe they are unique to there.

Truth be told, I don’t think I’ve ever had them made by anyone besides Aunt Margie until I made them from her recipe.

**Aunt Margie in 2004 with me on an architectural tour of Chicago by boat**

Many of the Italian and Italian-American cookies that I grew up with were cake-like. A stiff batter of flour, sugar, eggs, and fat (lard and butter were the most common), leavened with baking powder, flavored in some way (vanilla, lemon, chocolate and spice, sesame, and so forth), rolled or shaped and baked, and usually iced with a thin powdered sugar-milk icing that would harden to a glaze.

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Totos are a perfect example of the chocolate and spice variety.

Anginetti (Genets, as we called them in Italian-American-dialect-slang) also referred to as Lemon Knots, are lemon flavored. Although I’m devoting most of December to posting Italian-American pastry recipes, Anginetti won’t appear until next year.

Sesame Seed Cookies (which certain members of my family like to dip in wine) have no flavoring other than the sesame seeds they are rolled in before baking. These are coming next December, too.

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Colored Cookies are flavored with vanilla despite the riot of color that might suggest otherwise. There was a brief period of time, however, when Aunt Margie got creative (read iconoclastic) and used coconut extract instead of vanilla. Coconut and almond are my two favorite flavors when it comes to sweets, leagues beyond chocolate and vanilla as far as I’m concerned, but coconut-flavored colored cookies strayed too far from tradition for my taste. It didn’t keep me from eating them, however!

This is Aunt Margie’s original recipe. And if you flavor them with anything other than vanilla, please don’t tell me…just kidding!

If you have a favorite family recipe and a bit of a story to tell, please email me at santafecook@villasentieri.com and we can discuss it. I am expanding the scope of my blog to include traditional recipes from around the country and around the world. If you haven’t seen Bertha’s Flan, it will give you an idea of what I’m looking for.

I don’t use a lot of food coloring. The only other exception in recent memory (other than these cookies) was Jim’s Hawaiian Guava Cake. Take a look at my box of food coloring. The number 39 is the price: 39 cents! I’ve had it a long time, though I used up the red making the Guava Cake.

Aunt Margie's Colored Cookies

Use a very good quality vanilla extract, not artificial vanilla flavoring, as that is the predominant flavor. The best way to mix these is using your hand. If you don’t start there, you’ll end up there so just use your hand from the beginning. Although Aunt Margie’s original instructions were to ice the cookies while still warm, that is very difficult to accomplish without assistance. You can ice them after you have baked all of them with no noticeable difference. It is best to use medium-weight shiny aluminum cookie sheets. Dark metal makes the bottoms too dark before the cookies have completely cooked. You can divide the dough into five parts and color the last one yellow. If you do so, you will need to use slightly less of each dough to make a cookie.

Course

Desserts and Sweets

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

1 hour

Cook Time

2 hours

Servings

dozen

Ingredients

1 pound unsalted butter
1 2/3 cup sugar
1 large pinch salt
10 teaspoons baking powder (3 tablespoons plus one teaspoon)
1 1/3 cups milk
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 large eggs
8 2/3 cups flour

Icing

2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons milk plus additional if needed

Course

Desserts and Sweets

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

1 hour

Cook Time

2 hours

Servings

dozen

Ingredients

1 pound unsalted butter
1 2/3 cup sugar
1 large pinch salt
10 teaspoons baking powder (3 tablespoons plus one teaspoon)
1 1/3 cups milk
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 large eggs
8 2/3 cups flour

Icing

2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons milk plus additional if needed

Instructions

Measure all the ingredients.
Combine butter and sugar.
Mix well using your hands.
Add eggs one at a time mixing after each.
Mix in salt and baking powder then add milk and vanilla.
Combine well.
Add flour and mix until a dough forms.
Divide dough into four parts.
Leave one part of dough white.
Color the others pink, blue, and green.
Take approximately 1 teaspoon of each dough and roll into a ball the “size of a walnut” according to Aunt Margie’s recipe. You will need to apply a bit of pressure, without smashing the colors together, to be sure that the different colored doughs have joined into one cookie. If not, the cookies will split during baking.
Bake 350°F for 17-20 minutes until very light brown on the bottom and the top does not depress when touched lightly.
Remove cookies from cookie sheet and put on a cooling rack.
Using your finger, ice with powdered sugar icing while still warm.

Icing

Combine powdered sugar, vanilla and milk. Stir to combine.
Stir to combine.
Thin with a small amount of milk if needed. The icing should be of a spreading consistency.

Recipe Notes

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Recipes

Grandma Mihalik’s Butter Cookies

2 Comments

December 11, 2017

When I was young, cookie season started in mid-December and continued until early January. Friends and family all had platters and trays of cookies on their tables, often of the multi-tiered variety. Each was carefully wrapped in plastic ready to be unwrapped when guests arrived. The platters were replenished after each group of guests left.

In my circle of family and friends, cookies usually fell into one of two categories, Italian-American or Slovak-American.

To be sure, there was some crossover.

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Nut rolls and poppy seed rolls are Slovak (well, OK, they’re really pretty much pan-Eastern European but since I grew up in a half-Slovak family we considered them to be Slovak even though we knew they were also made by the Poles, Ukrainians, Slovenians, and other Eastern Europeans in town) but they were made by the Italian side of my family as much as by the Slovak side.

There were also nut horns, butterballs, and thumbprints which defied ethnic baking boundaries.

However, flat, rolled cookies, like these butter cookies, were not usually made by Italian-Americans. The totos that I wrote about last December and the colored cookies that are coming up later this week were not usually made by Slovak-Americans.

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This recipe came to me by way of Aunt Ann who was married to my father’s brother, Jano. She said it was Grandma’s recipe.

I remember eating these cookies and seeing them piled on my grandmother’s table over the holidays.

These cookies are similar to the sand tarts that are common in the central part of Pennsylvania where the Pennsylvania Dutch, of German extraction, historically lived. The big difference, though, is that the dough for these butter cookies is prepared more like a pie crust while the dough for sand tarts is prepared more like cake batter. That is, for these cookies, flour and sugar are cut into butter with a pastry blender whereas for sand tarts the butter and sugar are first creamed together.

There also are sand tarts that I think of as more Southern. These are usually rolled into balls or formed into shapes and baked but not rolled thin like Pennsylvania Dutch sand tarts and my grandmother’s butter cookies.

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Grandma Mihalik's Butter Cookies

The cookies should just be pale golden brown on the bottom. The color and weight of the cookie sheet significantly influence cooking. I find that shiny aluminum cookie sheets of medium weight work best. Dark metal will cause the bottom of the cookies to brown too much. Allow the cookies to rest for about 30 seconds before removing them from the cookie sheets. If you wait too long the cookies will lose their flexibility and are likely to break.

Course

Desserts and Sweets

Cuisine

Slovak

Prep Time

1 1/2 hours

Cook Time

1 hour

Passive Time

30 minutes

Servings

dozen

Ingredients

1 pound unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3 1/2 tablespoons cream or evaporated milk
2 large eggs separated
1/2 cup ground walnuts
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon preferably freshly ground
3 tablespoons sugar

Course

Desserts and Sweets

Cuisine

Slovak

Prep Time

1 1/2 hours

Cook Time

1 hour

Passive Time

30 minutes

Servings

dozen

Ingredients

1 pound unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3 1/2 tablespoons cream or evaporated milk
2 large eggs separated
1/2 cup ground walnuts
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon preferably freshly ground
3 tablespoons sugar

Instructions

Combine cinnamon and three tablespoons sugar. Reserve.
Grind the walnuts and reserve.
Put the butter in a mixing bowl and leave at room temperature for about 30 minutes to soften slightly.
Add 1 cup of sugar and flour to the butter.
Mix with a pastry blender until little beads form.
Add the cream and egg yolks and continue mixing with the pastry blender until a shaggy dough forms.
Press into a log, cut in half (or quarters) and wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Roll a portion of dough between sheets of waxed paper to approximately 1/8 inch thick.
Cut into shapes.
Arrange on ungreased cookie sheets.
If the dough starts to warm too much it will be difficult to get the cookies off the waxed paper. If this happens, put the rolled out dough, still between the waxed paper, in the refrigerator for a few of minutes.
Brush with unbeaten egg whites.
Sprinkle with ground walnuts
Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
Bake 350°F approximately 8-9 minutes or until light brown on the bottom.
Remove from the cookie sheet almost immediately and cool on a wire rack.

Recipe Notes

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Recipes

Pizzelle (Italian Anise-Flavored Wafer Cookies)

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December 6, 2017

Pizzelle punctuated my childhood.

Pizzelle were present at every holiday, birthday, wedding, and festive event as well as at random times throughout the year.

They usually came from Aunt Margie, though other folks made pizzelle, too.

My mother never did. Though she liked to bake, and made some wonderful pastries, pizzelle were not part of her repertoire.

The classic flavor is anise, though vanilla, and to a lesser extent lemon and orange, are common as well.

Aunt Margie would use pizzelle to make ice cream sandwiches. She would roll them around a tube to make faux cannoli. She would even roll them into ice cream cones. Of all the permutations, though, my favorite is just the classic, flat, crispy anise-flavored cookie.

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I don’t know anybody who doesn’t use an electric pizzelle iron these days but originally Aunt Margie used one of cast iron that was heated on the stove. It came from Berarducci Brothers in McKeesport, Pennsylvania and is most definitely iron, not aluminum. I have the pizzelle maker in its original box.

**Aunt Margie’s original cast iron pizzelle maker**

**The original box for the pizzelle maker**

Unfortunately Berarducci Brothers is no longer around. Not only did they manufacture stove-top and electric pizzelle irons, they made ravioli molds, crank-handle vegetable strainers, and an array of other culinary tools.

In my experience, anise oil is essential. Anise extract simply does not pack enough flavor to give pizzelle the punch they need.

When I was young, anise oil came from the pharmacy. It was not uncommon in those days for pharmacies to routinely compound medications to a physician’s specific instructions. Compounding is now limited to a few specialty pharmacies but not so back then. Anise oil was commonly used to flavor what might otherwise be a noxious medication.

It was common practice among the Italian families in my hometown to go to the pharmacy to buy a bottle of anise oil. One upside, besides the easy availability of the stuff, is that it was pharmaceutical grade and, therefore, very pure.

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I tried that in Santa Fe after my mother-in-law kept failing to get enough anise flavor out of anise extract. We even have actual compounding pharmacies in Santa Fe as well as pharmacies that specialize in herbal and homeopathic medications that also make up their own medications. No dice. Not one of them carried anise oil.

Amazon to the rescue. There are other on-line sources, too, like the King Arthur Flour people. So, if you want to try your hand at pizzelle, get anise oil, not anise extract. If you don’t like anise you could give vanilla, lemon, or orange a try. If you do, I suggest the lemon and orange oils from Boyajian rather than extract.

**The brand of Anise oil I have been using lately**

Pizzelle

Anise extract does not work well. Anise oil is an absolute requirement for the authentic taste. As with many "old Italian recipes" in my collection, this one provided a range of amounts of flour. 1 3/4 cups of all-purpose flour worked well and was pretty much right in the middle of the range. The batter will be quite stiff until the melted butter is stirred in.

Course

Desserts and Sweets

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

30 minutes

Passive Time

15 minutes

Servings

dozen

Ingredients

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
3 extra large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon anise oil or to taste
1/4 pound unsalted butter melted and cooled slightly

Course

Desserts and Sweets

Cuisine

Italian

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

30 minutes

Passive Time

15 minutes

Servings

dozen

Ingredients

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
3 extra large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon anise oil or to taste
1/4 pound unsalted butter melted and cooled slightly

Instructions

Combine flour, salt, and baking powder.
Mix well. Reserve.
Combine eggs and sugar.
Mix until well combined.
Stir in vanilla and anise oil.
Stir dry ingredients into egg-sugar mixture.
Stir in melted butter.
Lightly grease the pizzelle maker (with lard, preferably) before the first ones are baked. After the first, additional greasing is not needed.
Add a rounded tablespoon of batter to the center of each shape, depending on the size of your iron.
Cover and cook until light golden but not really brown. The length of time will vary based on the specifics of your pizzelle iron. With mine, it took 30-45 seconds per batch.
Cool the pizzelle on racks.
You can dust with powdered sugar if you'd like but I rarely do unless it's a really festive occasion.

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Recipes

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Bertha’s Flan

2 Comments

October 11, 2017

Bertha Kravicas left Lithuania in 1927 with her family. They were hoping to get to America but when the quota was full they went to the closest place they could.

They thought their sojourn in Cuba would be brief but as the months turned into years, Bertha made a trip back to the Old Country where she met Victor Ashman in Latvia.

They married and returned to live in Cuba in 1931. Over the years, they became Cubans in the way that immigrants to the United States become Americans no matter their background.

**Bertha in Matanzas, Cuba in the 1940s**

Victor even decided to run for public office. Because his name was not Cuban enough he officially changed it to Victor A. Larriga, in honor of his birthplace, Riga, Latvia.

One of the ways that Bertha adapted to her new country was through cooking.

Flan is made throughout the Spanish-speaking world but is especially popular in Cuba where it is the most common dessert. Flan is a source of family pride with each family believing that its flan is the best. (This sounds very familiar to me coming from a Southern Italian background where the same belief attaches to tomato sauce).

Flan recipes are passed down from generation to generation and fall into two general categories, those that contain canned milk and those that do not. Cubans smile approvingly when hearing that flan contains canned milk. After all, that’s how it should be!

Bertha’s flan is made entirely from canned milk; two kinds actually. That, and the generous amount of egg, makes a substantial flan.

After the Cuban Revolution Bertha and Victor took advantage of President Eisenhower’s offer for Cubans to immigrate to the United States. They arrived in late 1960 along with their son, Stuart.

**Bertha and Victor on their Harley in the 1940s**

Stuart is now the Executive Director of the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe. It was at a CCA event earlier this summer that I tasted this remarkable flan made by Stuart’s wife Peggy Gaustad. Peggy is now the flan maker in the family, having taken over from Stuart. For the CCA event, Peggy made flan for 100 people but she recalls once making it for 150!

Stuart remembers that as a child, when his mother would make flan, he would be given the empty can of condensed milk and a chopped up banana to sop up the last bit of sweetness!

This recipe is actually double Bertha’s original. It’s the way Peggy makes it because there never seems to be enough from the original.

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Bertha's Flan

Before caramelizing the sugar in the pan you’re going to use for the flan, put the empty pan inside of the larger one that you’re going to use for the water bath then add water to the large pan to come at least one inch up the side of the pan that will hold the flan. Remove the pan that you’ll use for the flan.

Course

Desserts and Sweets

Cuisine

Cuban

Prep Time

10 minutes

Cook Time

1 1/2 hours

Passive Time

30 minutes

Servings

people

Ingredients

2 cans sweetened condensed milk 14 ounces each
2 cans evaporated milk 12 ounces each
6 very fresh eggs lightly beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup white sugar

Course

Desserts and Sweets

Cuisine

Cuban

Prep Time

10 minutes

Cook Time

1 1/2 hours

Passive Time

30 minutes

Servings

people

Ingredients

2 cans sweetened condensed milk 14 ounces each
2 cans evaporated milk 12 ounces each
6 very fresh eggs lightly beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup white sugar

Instructions

For the flan, choose a 12-inch diameter pan with straight sides that can be heated on the stove and put in the oven.
Put enough water into a pan large enough to hold the pan with the flan so that the water comes one-inch up the sides of the pan with the flan.
Put the sugar into the pan selected for the flan.
Heat the pan with the sugar on medium heat until the sugar melts and turns dark brown. (A series of pictures follows showing the progression of the caramelization.)
Do not stir the sugar or caramel. Simply swirl the pan from time to time to mix the caramel. Rotate the pan on the heat occasionally to reduce hot-spots.
If the pan has a very heavy bottom, the retained heat will continue to brown the sugar off the heat. Stop caramelizing the sugar a little before you think it’s done otherwise it might burn. If it turns out that the caramel is not quite dark enough, you can heat the pan again briefly.
Remove the pan from the heat and allow it to cool during which time the caramelized sugar will harden on the bottom.
While the caramel is cooling, bring the water in the water bath to a simmer on the stovetop then put the pan into a 350°F oven.
Meanwhile, combine the condensed milk, evaporated milk, eggs, vanilla extract, and salt. Mix well.
When the caramel is hardened, pour the milk-egg mixture on top.
Cover the pan tightly, either with foil or with a lid.
Put the pan into the water bath in the 350°F oven.
Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes at 350°F.
A knife inserted in the center of the flan should come out clean. If not, cook a few minutes longer.
Remove the flan from the oven and cool to room temperature.
Refrigerate at least 8 hours. Overnight is best.
When ready to serve, run a knife around the edge of the flan.
Put a large platter upside down on top of the pan with the flan. Quickly flip the entire set-up over. The flan should come out of the pan in one piece. Pour any remaining caramel syrup onto the flan.
Serve very cold.