A tale of two biscottis

What do you give to someone who has everything?  Perhaps your time, attention and effort?  Biscottis fit the bill exactly.  Now, I used to be the biscotti making queen in my MS days in UT Austin;  I had modified a recipe found in a cook book (this was way before food blogs became so prolific online), adding lemon and orange zests, fine semolina etc... But unfortunately, I have not written down the recipe anywhere so I have to start from scratch.  I went to joy of baking website and took their best biscotti recipe and ran into trouble immediately.  The batter wouldn't come together when I did everything described.  I had to rework the recipe to finally get something in the oven.  here is my modified recipe.

  1. 1 cup (145 grams) mixed nuts, I used almonds, cashews and walnuts
  2. 1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking powder
  3. 1/8 teaspoon salt
  4. 2 cups (260 grams) organic chapathi flour
  5. 3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated white sugar
  6. 4 brown eggs (recipe called for 3)
  7. 1/2 cup milk (recipe didnt call for any)
  8. 1 tsp crushed anise seed (very light in flavour, would increase to 1 tbspoon next time)
  9. 1/2 tsp ginger powder (very light in flavour, would increase to 1 tspoon next time)
  • Preheat the oven to 150 deg C
  • Toast nuts for 8 to 10 minutes and chop
  • Beat eggs together lightly along with the milk
  • Mix the flour, salt, baking powder and sugar together
  • Slowly start adding the liquids, halfway through the liquids, mix in the nuts and spices.
  • When the batter finally gathers into a ball, divide in 2
  • Shape each half into a log 1 cm high and about 6 cm wide
  • Bake in a buttered pan for 30 - 40 minutes until it feels firm to the touch
  • Cool in pan for 10 minutes
  • Slice with a serrated knife, 1 cm wide
  • Bake cut side up for 10 minutes
  • Turn over and bake for another 10 minutes or more until the biscotti looks dry
  • Cool and store in a airtight tin.
I  got about 40 biscottis from this recipe but I found some issues  - too sweet, somewhat dense, somewhat dry, no crust to speak of and too nutty, .  The biscotti of my memory was richer so it is back to the mixing bowls again.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Kombucha in Chennai!

The lunch box challenge a.k.a. please gautham's palette

A Sweet Tart with Chocolate and Pomegranete