Bakingbuddies

Biscotti is Italian for biscuit. Like rusk, that we Indians are more familiar with, these are baked twice. Here’s a recipe for the same.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup + 1 tbsp All Purpose Flour  
• 1/2 cup Sugar (powdered)
• 3 1/2 tbsp Butter(melted)
• 1/3 cup Almonds (roasted, sliced or chopped)
• 1 Egg
• 1 tsp Orange zest
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• ¼ tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Vanilla essence
• 1 Egg white for brushing

Method:

• Sift together salt, baking powder and flour.
• Melt butter. Mix sugar, butter, egg and vanilla essence.
• Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix till well blended. Add the almonds and mix again.
• Cover the baking tray with parchment paper or aluminium foil.
• Shape the dough into a log, transfer to the baking tray and brush with whisked egg white.
• Bake at 170 deg C for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.
• Using a sharp serrated knife cut the log into even slices. Using the knife  in a saw like action reduces chances of the log slices breaking unevenly.
• Place the cut slices of the tray and bake again at the same temperature for 15 minutes.
• Cool and serve with tea/coffee.

Source: The original recipe can be found  on Smittenkitchen.

Mandira’s Notes:

Biscotti reminds me of rusk-in shape and texture but in flavour it reminds me of a dry fruit cookie. I made 1/3 rd of the original recipe so I got 1 log and about 14 pieces. I skipped the orange zest all together because  I didn’t have any oranges at home and was unwilling to go shopping for one ingredient. I could have used a dash of orange essence but it wouldn’t have been the same. When you add zest to a baked product, you get the flavour of the citrus food when ever you eat a piece with the zest. If you add an essence to the dough, the entire dough and thus the baked product gets that particular flavour. So you cant really substitute essence for zest. Even with just the almonds and vanilla essence, my  biscotti had a nice flavour. I skipped the brushing with egg white as well.

Lakshmi’s Notes: I made half of this recipe. I don’t recommend substituting the eggs this recipe – its very difficult to saw the biscotti log into pieces. Although I skipped the eggs – – and added about a 2 tablespoons of butter for each egg. I baked the log at 180 C for 30 minutes.  I had to bake for  20-25 minutes the second time.  I dint brush with egg white before baking the log. Neither did I add the orange zest – not a big fan of orange. But I loved the biscotti!! It was perfectly crunchy and almondy!