Clothilde's Pistachio Cookies

 
One of my favorite food blogs is Chocolate and Zucchini. The writer Clothilde is a young French woman who blogs in English. I enjoy her writing style even more than her recipes. Recently Clothilde could not resist the temptation and bought a big can of pistachio paste for 25E. Her creations of many things pistachio have since been appearing on her blog. Shortly after, I mimicked her in a smaller scale and ordered 8 oz. of pistachio paste for $11.75 from Lepicerie (a good source for Varlhona chocolate and other hard-to-find baking items), which has been sitting idly in my refrigerator for a while. Yesterday, I used Clothilde's recipe to make these cookies. My experience is that there is quite a difference between European and American flours, so one has to be very careful when following international recipes using flour. I think that it is better to use common sense than to follow exact measurements (even when one goes with weight rathen than volume.) Well, I did not heed my own warning when I made these, and I used the full 2 cups of flour called for in the recipe. I ended up with a dough I could easily roll into balls with my hands. I did not need the parchment paper she mentioned either. These baked in exactly 12 minutes like she said. Alas, none of the subtle green color I expected of a cookie with 1/4 c of precious pistachio paste in its dough, but there was a hint of pistachio taste. They were liked by my taste testers (including Ceyda), but I don't think I am baking them again. Decrease the flour if you do!