Melt-In-Your-Mouth Pistachio Cookies

With Lemon icing

Cooking and baking are a lot like the folk process. Someone hears a story, or learns a tune, or discovers a recipe, and they change it up a bit to suit them. Someone else picks it up from them and puts their spin on it, and so on, each person making the story, or the tune, or the recipe their own, sometimes until the original is hardly recognizable.

I had these cookies at a party and they absolutely blew my mind (yes, I do know that expression dates me). Recently, I reached out to the baker and asked her for the recipe. She happily agreed to share it. But, while I was waiting to receive it, I perused the web for other pistachio cookie recipes. One jumped out at me from the pack. There were no surprises there, because it came from a site that I hold in high regard.

And so, when I got the recipe I recognized it immediately. “This is the recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction!” I exclaimed. “Yes, it is”, she replied, “but I used a different Icing. Sally’s uses a brown butter icing. I made them with a lemon zest icing because I love lemon.”

I’ve since made them several times. I tried Sally’s brown butter icing. I tried A.J.’s lemon icing. I tried adding lemon to Sally’s brown butter icing. They were all good. I kept playing, and ultimately, I put my own spin on the recipe. I wanted the lemon flavor, but in a true icing—the butter in the other recipes makes them more of a frosting. And I wanted it to be smooth and creamy, without bits of lemon zest. Ultimately, I went with the simplest icing of all, the one that takes minutes to make.

Sally’s says that these cookies can be made with raw pistachios or the roasted and salted ones. She prefers them with the salted ones, being a fan of sweet and salty together. I’m also a fan of sweet and salty together—I’m dangerous around a bowl of kettle corn—but I tried them both ways. I prefer the flavor, texture, and color of the raw nuts, but I did miss the salt. I now make them with raw pistachios and add salt to the dough.

So, whose recipe is this? I guess it’s mostly Sally’s … unless she got her recipe for Pistachio Drop Cookies from somewhere else. Anyway, here’s my version.

Melt-in-your-mouth Pistachio Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup raw pistachios

• 1 cup (230 gm) unsalted butter, at room temperature

• ¾ cup + 2 tablespoons (105 gm) confectioner’s sugar

• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

• 1 teaspoon pure almond extract

• 2 ¼ cups (281 gm) all-purpose flour

• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt

• a few drops green food color (I use avocado green for a soft color)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350°.

• Finely chop the pistachios in a food processor—as finely as possible without turning it into a paste.

• Measure out ¾ cup and set it aside.

• Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or a hand mixer), beat the butter at medium speed until it’s completely smooth and creamy—about 1 minute.

• Add the confectioner’s sugar and the extracts, and beat on medium speed until well combined.

• Add the flour, the ¾ cup ground pistachios, the salt, and the food color (if using), and beat on medium/high speed for a minute or so, until thick and homogeneous.

• Scrape out the bowl with a silicone spatula, roll the dough into a flat-ish ball, and wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes.

• Using a leveled 1” cookie scoop, portion the dough. Then, roll each portion into a ball and set the cookie balls on a parchment-lined baking sheet, about 2” apart. If the dough is difficult to manage, the warmth from your hands will help.

• Bake for 13-14 minutes, until the bottoms are lightly browned, but before the tops are browned.

• Cool them on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack to cool completely. They must be completely cool before you ice them.

Lemon Cream Icing

I love this icing. It’s as simple as icing can possibly be, and I think it’s perfect for these cookies.

I love the way it looks—it’s very white and slightly translucent, and it’s beautiful on the green cookie—especially with the final sprinkling of pistachio dust.

I love the punch that the lemon flavor adds to the cookies. And, I love the smooth creamy texture that I get from using heavy cream and lemon juice, without the zest.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (120 gm) confectioner’s sugar

• 2 tablespoons heavy cream

• ¼ teaspoon Madagascar vanilla extract

• 2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice

• The leftover ground pistachios from the cookies

Method:

• Whisk the confectioner’s sugar, the cream, the vanilla, and the lemon juice until the mixture becomes creamy and smooth. If you prefer a thicker icing, add more confectioner’s sugar. For a thinner icing, add more cream. Taste the icing with your fingertip. For a stronger lemon flavor, add a little more lemon juice. This is your icing. Make it to your taste! 

• Lay a baking sheet, or a sheet of parchment paper, under your cooling rack. This way, any drips will be contained and your counter will remain icing-free.

• One by one, dip the cookies into the icing and return them to the rack.

• While the icing is still wet, sprinkle each cookie lightly with a bit of the remaining ground pistachios.

• Allow the icing to become hard and dry before serving. Expect this to take several hours. You can speed up the drying process by putting them in the fridge (in a single layer), but let them come back to room temperature before serving them. They taste best that way.