Nici Wickes: Edible Christmas Gifts and Pistachio and Cranberry Biscotti

Giving edible gifts at Christmas is a winner I say! Some ideas take some forethought, like preserved lemons, fruit pastes, chutneys and sauerkraut, but there’s plenty of other ideas that you can whip up over a day or weekend right before the big day. Think shortbreads, flavoured oils, scented salts or sugar meringues, spiced nuts, dukkah, gingerbread loaf, or one of my favourites, biscotti.  

Jars, bottles and small wooden or cardboard boxes can all be found in second hand shops, as can ribbon, wool, cotton etc to make them all look pretty. Tie some rosemary or bay leaves to jars and bottles for a festive look or decorate boxes with potato and paint stamps. Get creative!   

  

Pistachio and cranberry biscotti   

Homemade biscotti makes for a wonderful Christmas gift as it keeps well (so can be made ahead) and it’s one of those things that’s so much better than the store-bought variety.   

Makes about 30   

Ingredients 

• 3 medium sized eggs, at room temperature  
• ½ cup olive oil (can use 5 tbsps. butter)   
• ½ tsp orange zest  
• 2 ¼ cups plain flour  
• 1 tsp baking powder  
• ½ tsp salt  
• ½ cup caster sugar   
• ½ cup brown sugar  
• ½ cup roasted almonds, roughly chopped   
• ½ cup shelled pistachios  
• ¼ cup dried cranberries   

 

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 C and line a baking tray with baking paper.    
2. In a large bowl, lightly whisk eggs, olive oil, and orange zest. Add flour, baking powder, salt and sugars and stir until just incorporated.  
3. Fold in almonds, pistachios and cranberries and mix until combined.
4. Divide dough into half. Place each half on lined tray and with damp fingers, shape into a log shape about 4cm x 30cm. Flatten slightly.   
5. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown in colour and hard on the outside but not all the way through. Let cool and use a serrated knife, slice at an angle about 1.5cm thick.   
6. Place slices back on the tray and bake for 12-16 minutes more, until firm. They will firm up more as they cool.  
7. Place on a wire rack to cool before filling jars with them as presents.   

  

Nici's Notes:   

Store in an airtight container at room temperature for 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months. 

LISTEN ABOVE  

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
A cook, Nikki Wicks is in What Inner Modern.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
My my pet peeves are things like more better. Oh yeah,
there's no more better.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
I mean, that's.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Okay, more better. The other one is harassment is harassment.
It's not harassment. Get that man's name out of there.
It's not Harris errors harassment.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, yeah, is that anyway, it's the most happiest. I mean,
that's the that's the most happiest. Yeah, anyway, I don't know,
it's anyway. There are lots of examples. I know this morning.
I actually think it's a very dangerous, very dangerous game
to begin a show. I've only thought about this now,
but to begin the show with all of this judgment,

(00:53):
knowing that I've got to get through three hours where
every single sentence is going to be scrutinized.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Hey, well, let's tune a corner with Chariristmas joyous festivities.
So this is the first of I think that our
Christmas specials, we might do Christmas food for the rest
of this year. I mean, hey, because we've gotta got
a lot of things to get through. But I love
this idea of giving edible gifts. You know, they're useful,
they're practical, they're not buying into that kind of over

(01:22):
consumerism jack, which I love. And also this is a
bit of a judgment call. But you've got people who
you buy serious presents for, like big presents, you spend
a bit of money possibly, and then there's lots of
people that you want to say thank you to. So
for me, it's the guy that mows my lawns all year.
I want to give him something, but I probably wouldn't
buy a gift for him, but I'll give him an

(01:42):
little edible gift, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
Yeah, And so people like that.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
I think it's good. I think it's fine friends.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
You know, I think it's a great idea. Like the
classic bit of thought as well. You're not just buying
them some old no.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
And you can package them up nicely. So I've got
a whole lot of ideas. I'm going to run for
a recipe for pistachio and cranberry piscotti, but think things
like preserved lemons, fruit paste, chutneys, and sour kraut. Although
I would say with a lot of those you should
have made those last month. But Anyway, there's plenty of
other ideas that you can kind of whip up, you know,
this weekend, next weekend, right up to Christmas. Short bread,

(02:17):
little flavored oils, scented salts and sugars. Meringues are a
really good one that you can just wrap up. Spice nuts,
and if you look on the zb site and search
on my name, you'll find one year I did spice
nuts for us. Dooker, a gingerbread loaf would be great.
And this piscotti. So when you get piscotti at a cafe,
you also have to book in for the dentist because

(02:39):
it's so hard and terrible. Okay, but homemade piscotti is
brittle and crunchy but not hard and beautiful but still
perfect for a dunk and a coffee. So look, oven
goes on one eighty. I'm gonna have to rush through this,
so I'm just gonna kind of calmly go through it.
Line a baking tray with baking paper, big large bowl.
You're gonna whisk three medium sized eggs, half a cup

(03:03):
of olive oil. You could use five tablespoons of butter
if you like a good half a teaspoon of fresh
orange zest or more. And you're going to whisk all
of that together, and then add in two and a
quarter cups of plain flour and one teaspoon of baking powder,
half a teaspoon of salt, and half a cup of
sugar in there, so we've got all the kind of
basic elements. Stir that until it's all kind of incorporated,

(03:25):
and then I say, fold in but an actual fact
and half a cup of brown sugar. Sorry, I've got
half and half there. And then we're going to fold
through that about half a cup of roasted almonds that
I've roughly chopped, half a cup of shelled pistachios. You
get that lovely green in there for Christmas, and then
quarter it to a half a cup of dried cranberriese.

(03:45):
And again we're looking for Christmas here. So red and
green kind of really says that. Mix that through your
dough mixture, divide the dough and half jack and then
place each half on a line on that line tray,
and then using sort of you know, damp in your
hands or your fingers, shape it into a nice log
shape out four centimeters will probably about a thirty centimeter
long log flat slightly and bake it for thirty to

(04:08):
thirty five minutes till it's gold and brown. Should be
hard on the outside, but have a little bit of
given the middle. Let it cool down completely, and then
with a really sharp serrated knife, slice it on an
angle into about thicknesses of about one point five thick.
Place those back on the tray and bake them off
again for another twelve to sixteen minutes. They should be

(04:29):
firm all the way through. Remember things firm up even
more when they're cooled, so you've got to cool that.
And there you've got your beautiful homemade for Scotty. Place them,
you know, once they're ready called, place them in jars
little boxes, Wrap them with a bit of ribbon, put
a little bit of rosemary on them, maybe some bay
leaves or something like that for a bit of Christmas eve. Look,

(04:50):
maybe clip your little pine pine Christmas tree. But they're
a really beautiful Christmas gift. And people really really love
this sort of thing. And I love it because you
can make it now and it's still going to be okay.
And a couple of because it's been twice baked, it's
still going to be okay. In a couple of weeks
for Christmas.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
That was my question.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
Last absolutely look stored in an air tight container for
about a week even or a freezers freeze fro up
to three months or more. So you know, any is God.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
But yeah, I love you for that, all right, thank you.
We will make sure that recipe is up at newstalk
s headb dot co dot inc. It does sound like
a really thoughtful and delicious little Christmas gift idea.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to news talks he'd be from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio