Recipe Sweet Pine Nut Spread

MypinchofItaly

Forum GOD!
Joined
17 Feb 2017
Local time
12:15 AM
Messages
8,640
Location
Milano, Italy
Website
mypinchofitaly.co.uk
75348


An easy-to-make pine nut spread, perfect for filling biscuits, cupcakes or simply spread on biscuits or a slice of bread for breakfast.


Preparation 10 mins, Cooking 20 mins

  • 100 g pine nuts
  • 50 g brown or caster sugar
  • 70 ml whole milk
  • 50 g unsalted butter
  • About 30 g sifted rice flour


Method

Lightly toast the pine nuts in a saucepan without adding oil or butter.

Pinoli-tostati.jpg

Allow them to cool down, then grind them to a powder in a blender together with the sugar.

In the saucepan where you toasted the pine nuts, heat the whole milk, add the butter, stir without bring to boil, gradually add the rice flour stirring with a whisk so that no lumps form.

Cook for 5 minutes, keep stirring. If it is too liquid, add a bit more rice flour, sieved. Taste it and add more sugar according to your taste.
Leave to cool.

Pour the mixture into one or more ceramic ramekins and leave to set in the fridge for 2 hours.

It will keep for about 1 month in the fridge.
 
I like the simplicity of this: I could throw it together at a moment's notice (I have other nuts on hand that I could use, but pine nuts are intriguing for a sweet preparation). Despite the simplicity, there are 2 really great things that you did here: 1) toast the pine nuts; 2) continue the preparation in the same pan where you toasted them. There are too many recipes where the instruction is to use a clean pan for every phase of the preparation. Not only do they miss out on the flavors that are still in the pan, but they also make you clean out an extra pan!
 
MypinchofItaly, are pine nuts as costly in Italy as they are in the US? They are so wonderful and delicate, I love them so much, but I have found myself in the past wincing at the register when buying them to make pesto or something else. To put it in perspective, they are about $30 per pound here in the US, whereas cashews are about $8 a pound.

I am wondering if Macadamia nuts would be a worthy substitute for this?
 
MypinchofItaly, are pine nuts as costly in Italy as they are in the US? They are so wonderful and delicate, I love them so much, but I have found myself in the past wincing at the register when buying them to make pesto or something else. To put it in perspective, they are about $30 per pound here in the US, whereas cashews are about $8 a pound.

I am wondering if Macadamia nuts would be a worthy substitute for this?

Yes my dear, they cost an arm and leg here in Italy too, although it occurred to me to see some on low price - but they were tasteless.
The only place where I found them cheaper is in Liguria and Tuscany - well, not very surprising ☺️
I prefer to spend a bit more and enjoy a product that I like and tastes as it should be.
I buy them when I make a big shopping at the supermarket, they have the advantage to last for long in the pantry.
Yep, you can sub this with Macadamia or any other nuts, they work very well 👍🏻
 
Back
Top Bottom