[bohunk]

I like to make my biscotti without butter. I've found a recipe that I'd like to try that uses 4 T of butter and 2 whole eggs. Now, can I leave out the butter altogether or should I sub an additional egg yolk for the butter to have the recipe turn out alright?

[jessiquina]

i dont think that an egg yolk is adequate to replace butter in a recipe. if i were you, i'd look for a specific recipe that contains no butter.

[Jock]

It seems to me that a cookie dough with butter in it will end up like, well, a cookie. Biscotti are not supposed to be like cookies; they are indended to be very hard. Ergo, no butter!

Emily Luchetti's (Star's Deserts) recipe uses eggs and sugar and it's easy to control the final hardness by the length of time for the 2nd baking. From soft (not chewy) to classic biscotti hard.

Jock

[bohunk]

thanks for the imput. I finally just used my standard biscotti recipe and fiddled with the chocolate additives. Since these were for Mom, I wound up using 4 forms of chocolate (cleaned out my cupboard). They smelled like my brownines when baking. To me, they tasted good - just waiting for some feedback before tinkering some more.

[Breton Beats]

Jock,

Sorry to say but biscotti ARE cookies. They are hard not because of no butte but because....wait for it, they are baked twice, 2nd time at a lower temp so they dry out.

Hence Bi-cotti (italian for baked twice)

[KyleW]

Whether or not biscotti are cookies is beyond my intellectual capacity. I do know that both the lack of butter and and the double baking contribute to their dry nature. I have several biscotti recipes and none use butter.