Biscotti translates to 'twice baked' and apparently was a popular snack for Roman soldiers since the biscotti lasted for days without getting stale.
I read Christopher Columbus had biscotti stored away on his voyage to America...
In Tuscany, biscotti and vin santo is considered by many to be a perfect pairing. I enjoyed this combination at a cafe in Florence years ago...
I love dipping crunchy biscotti into a cup of strong black coffee.
Almond Biscotti
We baked a large variety of Italian cookies at Christmas time but I don't recall biscotti being in the mix. Now it's one of my favorite cookies.
Growing up, my mother always had Stella D'oro anisette toast coffee treats (our version of biscotti) for a snack when friends came over. They played scrabble or Yahtzee in the evenings and liked to dip the anise flavored biscotti in tea.
I've researched and baked dozens of biscotti recipes with varied results. I prefer very crunchy biscotti with seeds or nuts. I'm not a fan of adding dried fruits but that is certainly an option.
I also prefer biscotti with less baking powder to avoid the sodium bicarbonate flavor.
This is an easy recipe I've worked on, various flavors or particulates can be folded into the dough. The recipe can also be doubled easily.
Prep Time: 15 min
Cooking Time: 60 min
Yield: 20 small biscotti
Ingredients
2 cups AP flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup almond meal
3 Tbsp cornmeal
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 ea eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla (I like Tahitian)
2 Tbsp. melted butter (I use lightly salted butter)
2 Tbsp olive oil
3/4 cup almonds
How to Prepare Biscotti
Step 1
Blend the flour, sugar, almond meal, cornmeal, baking powder and salt together in a bowl.
Whisk the eggs in a separate bowl, add the vanilla, melted butter and oil. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and blend until homogenous-don't overmix.
Fold in the almonds.
Form the dough into balls and place onto a sheetpan with parchment. I like to sprinkle cornmeal for texture-optional.
Mold the dough balls into logs-I make more, smaller logs so I get more crunchy ends-you can simply make two, longer logs as well.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F until firm (not hard) (about 20 minutes) and then place on a counter to cool. (30 minutes is fine but sometimes I let set overnight and I think it's a little easier to slice)
Step 2
Carefully slice the biscotti (a serrated knife works well) and lay them on their sides in rows. Bake in the oven at 350°F until crunchy, approximately 10-12 minutes.
I like to store the biscotti in a tupperware type container.
Slices
Crunchy Ends
