Pizzelle, Gluten Free, Anise with Chocolate Variation

Gluten Free Pizzelle Cookies 

(Anise with Chocolate variation)

Adapted from Nick Malgieri by My Little Blue Heron

Pizzelle (pronounced: "peetsellay") are some of the older cookies around - like me. They're wafer cookies, traditionally made on the stovetop using an iron (think thin waffles). These are so easy to whip up and make - particularly in our modern times, since you can crank them out with ease, using an electric iron. I've tested out several electric devices, including the (classic) Palmer, as well as the Chef's Choice, but my fave , by far, is the simplest model that Cuisinart makes. It's compact, non-stick, quick, accurate, and reasonably priced. The manual iron, or stove top, is harder to locate.  I had one but gave it away. 

Traditionally, Pizzelle cookies can lay flat or can be rolled or curved (like tuilles cookies - French for tiles .. the clay ones that are on roofs). They can be dipped, filled, or dusted with sugar. 

You can fool around with flavors! Swap out anise for vanilla or lemon. Try adding some espresso powder (I love King Arthur Flour's) to the chocolate variation. 

Due to the absence of gluten (stretchy protein), manipulating these cookies is a little challenging. I stuck with flat - and that's what I recommend you do, too. King Arthur Flour's All Purpose Gluten Free Flour is excellent and worth the price. Look for sales. Wegman's (it's in NYC now!) is always competitive in its pricing. I don't recommend using  their (or any) "Measure for Measure" flour. My faux of choice is guar gum. For me (and I've read that this is true for others) it doesn't cause stomach upset, and it produces a finer, gentler product. You'll read that you shouldn't use guar gum when baking, but I say guar for it. You may have to alter (increase slightly) quantity with guar - but just a smidge. If you're serious about learning about xanthan v. guar, you can read up on it. Laurent Dran, a genius GF baker, exclusively uses guar gum in his recipes. Xanthan gum is a mold that grows on corn. (His books are in French, so should you decide to purchase, here's an instant translation tool that I found really easy and convenient.) (And it's possible that xanthan isn't available in France, but I kinda doubt it.) And to play it from the opposite corner: other chefs (read about it in Larsen's "Gluten-Free Baking at Home", tout xanthan gum as the binder of choice because it's not from a bean source and it won't cause stomach upset. You'll find convincing arguments for either. I suggest you experiment with both and decide what's best for you.

I adapted these Pizzelle recipes from Nick Malgieri's "Cookies Unlimited" book. You can find a used copy for about $6. If you live in NYC, you can often find used copies at good bookstores like The Strand (which is fun to visit when it's not during Christmas time).

What's impizzellitive is that you WEIGH ingredients for these recipes). PLEASE buy a kitchen scale. Here's Wirecutter Deal's budget pick, which .. if you ACT NOW is at an unbelievable low of ... $9.47 U.S.

MLBH truc: If you have star anise: Please take a glass jar: fill it with some granulated sugar, throw in some star anise, pour in more sugar, repeat. Let sit for several days to several weeks. This sugar will make your pizzelle do the tighten up: 

peace and love,
jane

🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊

Gluten Free Pizzelle Cookies (Anise with Chocolate variation)

Adapted from Nick Malgieri by My Little Blue Heron

Equipment:

An electric pizzelle iron. A kitchen scale.

Ingredients:

314 g. King Arthur all purpose gluten free flour (NOT WITH XANTHAN GUM)

2 g. guar gum

pinch of kosher salt

9 g. baking powder (gluten and aluminum free)

2 eggs, size large, room temperature

1 large egg yolk

2 Tbsp. anisette (or use anise extract, but much less)

160 g, granulated sugar (may be infused with star anise (see MLBH truc above and then see note below)

8 Tbsp./4 oz. unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

vegetable or palm oil for greasing the iron

Note: If you have anise seeds, you can grind them and throw in a Tbsp. or more, to taste – this is up to you and how much you adore anise. 

Procedure:

1.    In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. (You can place the bowl on the scale, taring after each addition and then remove from scale to whisk.)

2.    In a different bowl, whisk together the eggs, anisette, melted butter and sugar.

3.    Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mixture will be somewhat stiff.

4.    Heat the pizzelle iron to desired temperature. You’re going to have to experiment with this because every iron is different. Coat the iron lightly with vegetable or palm oil once. You won’t have to do this again unless the cookies begin to stick.

5.   Drop rounded spoonfuls of batter (my iron came with a measured spoon) onto the center of the iron, close the iron and they are usually ready when they stop steaming. The Cuisinart can be adjusted to different settings, and a light tells you when they’re baked. (I turn mine to pretty well done - almost the highest.) Easy!

6.    Remove immediately and place on a cooling rack. Repeat. Repeat .. until all batter is used. You can try rolling them while they’re still warm. Try using a French rolling pin or any cylinder as a mold. You can roll them into cones, dip them in chocolate and fill them with whipped cream!

7.  When cooled, store them in an airtight container. You can dust them with some powdered sugar – pretty.

Chocolate Variation:

1.    Remove 20 grams of gluten free flour

2.    Add 20 gram of unsweetened, dark cocoa powder

3.    Whisk flour and cocoa together well.

You may like the combo of Anise and Chocolate, or you may opt for vanilla extract (1 tsp. or ¼ tsp. Gluten Free vanilla powder made by Authentic Foods), and you could add a chocolate, hazelnut, orange or coffee liquor or extract.

Take care that you don’t overbake chocolate pizzelle cookies. Chocolate becomes bitter when burnt.

Spumetti (Hazelnut Meringues)

Hazelnut Meringues

(“Spumetti” or “Little Foamies”)

Adapted from Nick Malgieri (who adapted these from Richard Sax)

By Blue Heron Kitchen

Any formal training I have, I attribute to Peter Kump’s cooking school. Nick Malgieri steered the pastry department and mentored my teacher, with whom I opened a wholesale bakery. I never took a class with Nick, but he was always around. I once heard him gossiping about Maida Heatter. He intimated that she’d hit bottom because she published a cookie book. It wasn’t too long after that his (great) cookie book came out. Why will I never forget this?

Nick’s published recipes are reliable; but all of his recipes at Kump’s were perfect. More, I learned what I consider a wonderful ‘method’. When Peter Kump died, the school closed, relocated to the Flatiron district and re-opened under new management and name, “ICE”, the Institute of Culinary Education. I’ve never taken a class there, but many of the instructors are still the same and Nick is still head of the Pastry division. Check it out if you’re interested in “pro”, “avo” or just a single class. You’ll receive excellent instruction.

This recipe comes from his “Cookies Unlimited” book. These are perfect for your Easter dessert table. If you’re unorthodox about Passover ingredients, and can live with using 10X (confectioner’s) sugar, these are a nice change from the ‘same old’ macaroons. They’re a mixture of chocolate, cinnamon and hazelnut. Meringenius.

When they emerge from the oven, the texture is sponge-like (“little foamies”.)  As they set up, they don’t stay sponge-like. The cocoa/cinnamon will bitter if they're too well done, so don't over-bake them, thinking they'll set up better and "de-sponge" if you bake them longer. They won't. They'll bitter-up.

And don’t be deceived by the cartoonish name. Little foamies are for grown-ups.

Avere una dolce primavera, una felice Pasqua e una dolce Pesach.

peace and love,

jane

Ingredients:

6 oz. hazelnuts, toasted and skins removed

1 cup 10X (confectioners’) sugar

3 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Valrhona.)

¼ tsp. ground cinnamon (make sure it’s fresh!)

3 egg whites, size large, room temperature

pinch of kosher salt

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 350º F. Rack in upper and lower third of oven.

If you need to skin the hazelnuts, place on jelly roll pan and toast them for 5-8 minutes until skins are brown. Put hazelnuts in a rough tea towel and rub them rigorously. The skins will come away from the nuts. Any skins that don’t – don’t sweat it.

Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper.

Coarsely chop hazelnuts. You can use a food processor. Or you can do this by hand. I have a hand nut grinder and grind them on the “coarse” setting.

Sift together: ¼ cup of the 10X sugar, the cinnamon and the cocoa powder and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer (Take care that there is no fat in the bowl or on the whisk, or your whites won’t come up to a meringue. Similarly, if any yolk comes into the white when you separate your eggs, dump that egg. It will ruin the meringue.) beat the three egg whites until foamy. Add a pinch of salt (be generous) and continue to beat until they begin to stiffen.

One tablespoon at a time, add the remaining ¾ of a cup of 10X until you have a stiff meringue.

Remove from the stand and by hand, fold in the sifted mixture of 10X, cocoa and cinnamon until fully incorporated. Be patient.

Fold in the hazelnuts.

By tablespoonful, drop onto cookie sheets.

Bake for approximately 20 minutes, half way through, rotate sheets, top to bottom, front to back.

These will still be soft and spongy when you remove them from the oven.

Cool completely and then store the macaroons between sheets of parchment or waxed paper in a container with a tight fitting cover.

Yield: approx. 30 cookies

Breton

Breton

Fillings: Pecan, Walnut or Cooked Apple

Adapted by Blue Heron Kitchen from Nick Malgieri

It’s been almost 15 years since I went to pastry school.  Peter Kump’s was this tiny, vertical cooking school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, filled with extraordinary teachers.  Nick was one, and he moved from Kump’s, when it closed (Peter passed away), to the Flatiron District, and he’s now directing the pastry program at ICE, the Institute for Culinary Education.  I don’t know him personally, but my former partners at Maurice Pastry do.

Thank you, Nick, for your fantastic recipes and expertise throughout the years. My ‘formal’ training was mostly from your program, and I learned a great deal in a short span of time.

Bretons are butter cakes that are most of the time, filled. I’ve seen recipes for them that are yeasted, but this recipe is not. The Breton originated in Brittany, France.  (Use good quality, fresh, high fat content – 83% - butter, and you’re most of the way there.)  They’re fun to make, hold well, and they feed a crowd.

This recipe requires a kitchen scale.  I have a gorgeous stainless steel one that tares back to zero whenever I tell it to that’s made by Salter.  They’re about $30 now at places like Bed Bath and Beyond or Amazon.    

Breton Dough

1pound unsalted butter, room temperature

1 pound sugar

8 yolks (room temperature eggs, size large)

1 lemon, zested

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

28 oz. all purpose flour

Combine butter and sugar in a mixing bowl.  Beat the paddle attachment on the second speed until very light.  Add yolks, one at a time (the mixture should look like buttercream), then the lemon zest and vanilla.  Sift flour; add to the bowl with the paddle on first speed.  Scrape dough out of bowl.  Use immediately.  The dough will be very soft. This will make 2 Bretons, so you can freeze this, halve it or make the apple filling for another one (below).

Set the dough aside, covered, while you make the filling(s).

Pecan or Walnut Filling (enough for two bretons):

½ pound light brown sugar

4 ounces butter

4 ounces honey

1 pound pecans or walnuts, coarsely chopped

Bring brown sugar, butter and honey to a boil in heavy saucepan over medium heat: boil 3 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Stir in nuts.  Let cool before filling the Breton.

Cooked Apple Filling:

2 ½ pounds Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored and halved

4 oz. sugar

2 oz. butter

¼ - 1/2 tsp. cinnamon (optional)
or
1/2 tsp. allspice (optional)
2 Tbsp. rum or Calvados (optional)

Slice each apple half into 4-5 pieces. Combine apple slices with remaining ingredients in a heavy sauté or saucepan over medium heat.  Cover, cook 5-10 minutes.  Uncover; lower heat, cook until water evaporates.  Cool completely before filling the Breton.

Assembling the Breton:

Preheat oven to 350º F. and put the rack low.

Split the batter in half and reserve half for the second Breton, or pat it into a flattened disc, wrap well and freeze for another time. 

With floured hands, pat 1/2 the dough evenly onto the bottom of a buttered and parchment lined 10” x 2” round cake pan (or ring).  Bring the dough up about an inch up the side of the pan.

Spread the cooled filling(s) on the dough.

Flour a 10” cardboard round or a tart pan bottom.  Flour the remaining dough and press it against the bottom of the round or tart pan bottom.  Slide a thin sharp knife or spatula between the dough and cardboard or pan bottom to loosen it and press it into place, on top of the filling, making sure that the edge of the top crust meets the side of the bottom crust.  Smooth the top crust with the back of a spoon so that it is very smooth, especially around the edge. 

Make an egg wash with an egg yolk and some milk or heavy cream and brush the top with the egg wash.

With the tines facing away from you, draw once down the center, and then two more on either side to make fine ‘tine line’ lattice strokes.  Then, turn on a 45º angle and repeat, to draw a tined lattice, with five more strokes of the fork. 

Brush again with the egg wash.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes on the lowest rack until well colored.  Cool on rack.

Unmolding:  Invert a plate on the Breton and invert the Breton onto it. Carefully lift off the pan and peel off the paper.  Invert another plate on the Breton (now, the Breton is upside down between the two plates), reinvert the Breton and remove the top plate.

Store the Breton, loosely covered, at room temperature up to 2 days.

Yield:  About 10 to 12 portions