12 Days of Cookies - A Gourmet cookie extravaganza

This wonderful event is the brain child of Andrea of Andrea's Recipes. How I got asked to be involved with this incredible group is beyond me but all the thanks goes to Kelly of Sass & Veracity. There are 7 of us that have decided to do The 12 Days of Cookies - A Gourmet cookie extravaganza. We will be choosing, baking, tasting, blogging and sharing with you a cookie a day for the next 12 days of December.

These cookies are coming from Gourmet's Favorite Cookie Recipes: 1941-2008. They’ve published a lot of cookie recipes in their 68-year history, many of them around the winter holidays. This season they decided to choose the very best from each year.

These are my partners in crime. We will all be choosing different cookies and surprising each other. How fun is that???? Be sure to check out their selections for the day!

Jerry - Cooking...by the seat of my Pants
Sandy -At the Baker's Bench
Courtney - Coco Cooks
Kelly - Sass & Veracity
Claire - The Barefoot Kitchen
Andrea - Andreas Recipes

Day 6 of The 12 Days of Cookies features Biscotti di Regina (Queen's Biscuits)!

You may have forgotten about this Italian take on sesame seed cookies, but their cakelike texture and sweetness will remind you why they’re an old favorite.- Gourmet

Biscotti di Regina (Queen's Biscuits) - November 1955 (link to the recipe as it was originally printed)

Ingredients:

1 cup butter (I used unsalted butter *sigh* lol!)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 Tbsp vanilla
5 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 pound sesame seeds

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 450°
  
• Cream butter and1 cup sugar until light and fluffy.
  
• Beat in egg and add gradually milk and vanilla extract.
  
• Sift together into a bowl flour, salt, and baking powder. Make a hollow in the center and gradually work in the butter-sugar mixture. If the dough seems too dry, add more milk.
  
• Shape the dough into a ball and chill it in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.
• Wash and drain well sesame seeds.
  
• Break off pieces of the chilled dough the size of walnuts and flatten them slightly between the palms. Roll the biscuits in the sesame seeds and bake them on a cookie sheet 1/2 inch apart in a hot oven (450° F.) for 10 to 12 minutes, or until golden. Makes 5 dozen biscuits.

I LOVE these...now I'm not sure if it was them or the fact that I was sooooooo tired of mocha and coffee and chocolate! No really. I LOVED these. They are so Italian cookie tasting. I wanted to just drown it in an espresso but alas I only had hazelnut coffee!

They are sweet and cake like and covered with wonderful toasted sesame seeds and on top of all of that they are so easy to make. I made the dough the day before and then in the morning used the 450° oven to warm my kitchen and bake these little bits of goodness!

Would I make these again? OMG yes and maybe next week...

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com