The pinecone shaped cookies are delicious chocolate and orange Christmas pastries made with the dough of my cocoa desert roses decorated with corn flakes. To make them, I was inspired by my chocolate pinecones, tasty truffles I created in 2017 and which, over time, have gone viral, you can find them on many sites in a thousand variants.
Today I invented a little cookie in the shape of a pinecone, while I was preparing the desert roses, I thought of giving them a different and festive shape, the pinecone is the perfect subject, it doesn’t exist on the web, so I said let’s try! I must say it turned out beautifully, besides having a delicious taste, it is a wonderful gift idea but also perfect as a place card for Christmas parties.
With Christmas just around the corner, if you don’t know what to give, I suggest a lovely wooden box with many varieties of cookies, the pinecones are perfect because they are really beautiful, in addition, you can add traditional cookies like cantucci or ricciarelli or German pastries like vanillekipferl or spitzbuben.
Want to make the pinecone shaped cookies even more festive? you can add spices to the dough or some finely chopped candied fruits.
Here are some recipes to try:
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Economical
- Rest time: 1 Hour
- Preparation time: 25 Minutes
- Portions: 15 Pieces
- Cooking methods: Electric oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Autumn, Winter, Christmas
- Energy 143.04 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 20.96 (g) of which sugars 7.85 (g)
- Proteins 2.68 (g)
- Fat 6.00 (g) of which saturated 2.35 (g)of which unsaturated 1.31 (g)
- Fibers 1.34 (g)
- Sodium 83.01 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 30 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup almond flour
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 4 tbsp butter
- 1 egg (medium, about 50 g)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp orange zest (grated)
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 oz dark chocolate chips
- 5 cups cocoa corn flakes (I used the boat-shaped ones)
- 2 tbsp vanilla powdered sugar
Tools
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Hand whisk
- 1 Scale
- 1 Baking sheet
- Parchment paper
Procedure
Cut the butter into cubes, place it in a bowl, and leave it at room temperature to soften; I soften it in the microwave for 20 seconds.
Add the sugar and beat it with a hand whisk until it is light and fluffy.
Add the orange zest, vanilla, salt, and egg, mix well, then add the sifted flour with cocoa and baking powder, finally add the almond flour. Place the mixture in the fridge to chill for 1 hour.
For decoration, I used Coop boat-shaped ones, but cocoa corn flakes work perfectly fine.
Divide the mixture into balls weighing about 30 g and shape them like cones, the dough is soft so the corn flakes will insert with no issues.
Insert the cereal, one boat at a time, starting from the bottom and going towards the tip. Make sure to stagger them, so they resemble real pinecones.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place your cookies well spaced as they will increase in volume during baking. The pinecones might open slightly in the oven, you can leave them like that if you like, but if you want them more closed like the ones in the photo, proceed as follows:
as soon as they come out of the oven, you can shape them, so place one hand on the left and one on the right of the pinecone and gently compact it, be careful not to burn yourself, but the corn flakes are not particularly hot. Do this operation quickly, if the cookies cool, the petals will detach.
Do not modify the dough, or they might completely lose their shape.
Bake the cookies in a preheated static oven at 350°F for 18 minutes; remove them from the oven and let them cool before moving them because they remain soft.
The pinecone shaped cookies are ready, dust them with powdered sugar and serve, or put them in a Christmas box with other cookies, it’s a beautiful gift idea.
Tips
Storage
You can store the pinecone shaped cookies in an airtight container for 4/5 days. If the cereals used for garnish tend to absorb the moisture from the cookie and lose some of their crunchiness, you can dry them in the oven at 212°F for a few minutes.
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