Biscotti

cut'em hot

It helps to have the cookie log hot, us a sharp serrated knife and work fast.:smiles:

i'm new to this forum, so i don;t knwo what went wrong. This is supposed to be a reply to the biscotti posting. I tried once but it didn;t post. here it is again

Biscotti means twice-cooked. So no way you can not cook the loaf, since that's the way they're done. Biscotti also is used just to mean cookies, but it seems the type you're looking to make are the kind they sell in the states, at coffee places. Never ran into them in italy, but anyway. I have a good recipe for what are called "cantucci" or "tozzetti" which are the famous umbrian/tuscan hard cookies with whole almonds which you are served after dinner with sweet wine, for dunking. But these are the real thing.
3 1/2 cups flour
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 cup whole almonds
2 tbsp butter
4 eggs
salt 1/8 tsp
cinnamon 1 tsp
1/2 tsp baking soda
mix butter and sugar and 4 eggs - add flour, salt, cinnamon and soda. mix together and add almonds. mix in.
form into 4 or 5 loaves, about the length of a hand and about three fingers wide.
grease and flour baking sheets.
bake till solid but still somewhat soft (though not wet inside).
remove from oven and slice into slices about a finger in width
lay flat on sheets and bake again until hard.
I used to make these for a restaurant in rome and they were a big success. Sorry the directions are so approximate - all recipes here are like that. But it;s hard to go wrong
use a sharp THIN knife to cut them, and always use a sawing motion. serrated is ok, as long as it's a good quality serrated knife with a thin blade, not the usual supermarket thing. otherwise a non serrated sharp thin blade will work

Hi Yuesang,

I used to make biscotti very frequently.  My favorite recipe called for butter (I kept trying to find one without, like true Italian biscotti, but alas, those never turned out well.)

 

I finally hit on a recipe, using toasted hazelnuts as the nut in them.   I could not find hazelnut flavoring anywhere, so I used about 1½ T of hazelnut coffee syrup.   It did a few things that improved my biscotti.

 

(My original recipe was very similar to Siduri's).  

1. the small addition of liquid - very small - gave me more time "in the zone" the point where the biscotti slices easily.  Before that I would wait a couple of minutes after the 1st baking and then slice.  All went well until it cooled too much, then it crumbled.  The very small addition of the syrup gave me more time.

 

2. the flavor, of course,

 

3. the cookies did not get brown too fast (we liked ours pale, like real Italian ones)

 

I always made a triple recipe - enough for 4 (large flat) logs on 2 large cookie sheets. (baked at the same time I never noticed a bit of difference baking them one at a time) My cookies were generously long, not the typical "home made" look.

 

When I took them out after the 1st baking, (when golden and holding their shape well) I let them set maybe 2-4 minutes,  If you sliced them too soon, they mushed up when slicking, when they cooled too much, they crumbled.  You had to hit it just at the right temperature. (As I mentioned above the small amount of liquid helped extend the period)

 

 I remember they were still rather hot as I sliced, because I usually held the log with a dish towel while I worked.  I used a serrated knife  and used the knife edge to scoot them on the cookie sheet. I did NOT lay them on their sides.  I merely spread them out all over the sheet with the knife behind them for support, that way the sides were exposed to the heat on the 2nd baking and I did not have to turn them.   The knife helped keep them in shape when they were softer from the heat

 

On the 2nd baking, I put both pans back in the oven at reduced temperature.  I cooked it for about 10-12 minutes, then I turned the oven off and left the cookies in until the oven was completely cool - usually overnight.

 

This worked beautifully for me, drying them out completely without over browning.  The tiny bit of extra liquid helped me slice them cleanly and leaving them standing up eliminated turning them over.  Also I found chopping the nuts to a small pea size, no larger, helped because when the knife it them it made a mess too.

 

Hope this helps