Biscotti are the ideal dessert because they’re incredibly simple to make, but they seem complicated and fancy. You may have always been content to buy them at the grocery store, but once you make them, you’ll wonder exactly why you were paying over $6 a bag for something that costs well under $3 and takes less than 10 minutes of active time to make.
Biscotti means “twice baked,” and thats what these cookies are. First, a whole blob of dough is baked. Then, it’s sliced and baked again in its typical stick shape. Another advantage of making biscotti yourself is that you can choose how crunchy you want to make them, from moist and crumbly to break-your-teeth hard. I’d recommend against the second extreme.
Here, I use sliced almonds, but there are thousands of variations on biscotti. Perhaps some of them are slightly more difficult than others, but this one is dead simple.
Recipe adapted from joyofbaking.com
What you need:
- 2 c flour
- 3/4 c sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 c sliced almonds
- 3 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp almond extract
- optional: 4 oz chocolate
What to do:
- Preheat oven to 350F
- Mix together all of the dry ingredients and the almonds until combined. Add eggs and extracts, and stir until everything combines into a sticky ball.
- Line a baking sheet with wax paper. Divide dough in half (it will be very sticky), and mold each one on the wax paper into a log about 2-3 inches wide and 8-10 inches long. Put the logs a few inches apart.
- Place in the oven and turn the temperature down to 300F. Bake 40-45 minutes, or until the log is relatively firm.
- Take the baking sheet out of the oven and pull the logs off the wax paper, allowing them to cool for 10 minutes on a wire cooling rack. Slice the logs diagonally (this will give you the long, quill-shaped biscotti that look so fancy).
- Lay the individual biscotti on the baking sheet, and bake for another 10 minutes. Flip the slices over and bake another 10-12 minutes (or more if you like them crunchier). Remove from oven and let cool.
- Optionally, melt some chocolate and drizzle it over the biscotti after they are cool. Let the chocolate harden in the refrigerator, then store the biscotti in an airtight container.
Tags: chocolate
