Torcettini di Saint Vincent/Sugar Crusted Twisted Cookies~~~We Knead To Bake#4

 For our this month's We knead to bake, a monthly baking event started by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen, she challenged us to make Torcettini di Saint Vincent aka sugar crusted twisted cookies.This sugar crusted twisted cookies are quite particular coz its neither a biscuit nor cookies, but they are yeasted and goes for a bread like dough,thats the reason these cute cookies are yeasted cookies.Torcettini are the smaller version of torcetti which means small twists, this cookies goes for a teardrop shaped twists made with dough of flour,yeast,butter which is shaped and then rolled in sugar before baking.

Its seems that the origin of these biscuits is believed that a grissini ( the famous Italian breadstick) baker had some leftover butter which he ended up in adding to the last batch of grissini dough and rolled them in sugar and finally he shaped them into loops, this is how torcetti was born. Torcettinis tastes fabulous when served along with coffee or tea, these cookies will be mild in sugar with a wonderful flavour.I prepared my torcettini with coffee powder and orange zest instead of plain one or with chocolate powder. I rolled my torcettini with brown sugar and they came out extremely fabulous and we couldnt stop ourselves munching these beauties.

Today we start our last week of blogging marathon,we have successfully finished three weeks already with three beautiful themes,for the fourth week its going to be crafts or miscellaneous theme.Since craft is not my cup of tea, am going to cover few food events during this whole week.Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#27.

(Adapted from A Baker's Tour by Nick Malgieri)

1+1/2cups All purpose flour
1tsp Instant yeast
1/2tsp Instant coffee powder
1tsp Orange zest
40grms Butter (unsalted,cold and cut into small pieces)
1/2cup Warm water
1/4tsp Salt
1/3cup Brown sugar for rolling the cookies

Take the flour,salt,coffee powder,orange zest in a food processor, pulse it for few minutes, add the butter pieces and pulse it again until the flour mixture looks powdery.

Add the yeast,water and pulse it again to form a ball.Dont over process the dough.

Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover it well and let the dough rise a bit.

The dough wont really double in volume,it will look puffy after an hour,when you pinch off a bit from the top you can see the interior of the dough looks like honeycomb.

Press the dough and deflate it, wrap it in a cling wrap and refrigerate it for atleast one hour.

Take the dough out, lightly roll it out into a square, cut into four strips, then each strips as 6equal pieces.

Then cut them again to make a total of 24 pieces.

Roll each piece as pencil thick rope, sprinkle little brown sugar on your work surface,roll the rope in it, so the sugar crusts the dough uniformly.

Form the rope into a loop crossing it over before the ends.

Preheat the oven to 325F,place the rolled unbaked torcettini on a baking sheet lined over a baking tray,leaving enough space between them, leave it aside for 20minutes.

Bake them for 25minutes until they gets a nice golden brown crust.

Cool them completely and enjoy with your favourite drink.