Biscotti

Today I had the pleasure of working on a special gift for two very special people. This weekend I will be celebrating my Grandmother's birthday. 

I will be making a cake as well, but I wanted to give Gran and Grumps something to take home and enjoy later. One of their favorite recipes of mine is my biscotti. Grumps hoards these like his candy bars, he hides them as soon as he get a hold of them. My cousin's and I used to have a blast trying to find Grump's stash of Mr. Goodbars.

So today we are making two flavors of biscotti, chocolate chunk with almonds, and pistachio with dried cherries.

We'll start with a base recipe and add in which ever flavors you like. 

You will start by combining all your dry ingredients. All purpose flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

Give it a good whisking to combine.

Crack 4 eggs.

Measure out a tablespoon of honey.

I got some yummy local stuff from a farmer's market close to my house. Did you know that honey is the ONLY food that doesn't expire? 

Liquid Gold.

I was so busy trying to get an action shot that I was unaware that I was pouring honey all over my bowl and table...fail.

Next, some of my favorite ingredients ever. 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and a splash of vanilla bean paste.

Combine all your wet ingredients.

 Make a "well" in your dry ingredients and pour your wet into your dry.

Like so.

So neat and contained.

Start incorporating the flour, and mix to your little heart's content. This is a great recipe for the kiddos, you can't really over mix and it always turns out great. 

Mix till uniform.

It was take a minute, but it will come together.

See? Now at this point you can add in your flavors. Dark chocolate and dried cherry is delicious, cinnamon and almond with walnuts is scrumptious, but today we are making Chocolate Almond and Cherry Pistachio.

So you can use whole almonds, or slivered, either way they benefit from a good toasting. And nothing makes chocolate look prettier than a quick kiss from a blow torch. It just makes it look... 

chocolatey-er... right?

Now Mix!

Scoop out into a log like shape. You want the log to be fairly skinny, when it bakes it will expand and you will be cutting crossways for a pretty biscotti, so don't make him too fat.

Mmmmm looks yummy, no?

Like a long goopy cookie.

Goopy is a word right? A technical term I believe.

On to flavor number two!

Beautiful  ingredients!

Now mix, log, and put into a 375 degree oven for 15 minutes.

This recipe needs to make two logs, so even if you only want to make one flavor, you still need to break it up into two logs for baking. 

Side by side.

Now bake till evenly golden brown and appears for the most part "done".

I should have let mine go a little longer admittedly, but eh, what are you gonna do?

Now for the twice baked part of this party. I have my lovely hand model and friend, Sam here to demonstrate that you cut your giant cookie crossways. Starting to look familiar now?

Cut both logs, and place cut side up on a cookie sheet.

Place back in a 325 degree oven for another 10 minutes, till golden brown. It may take longer than 10 minutes, so trust yourself, if it doesn't look done then it probably isn't. You want to dry out these cookies. You want them nice and dehydrated so when you dunk these little beauties in your coffee, tea or espresso, they soak up every last drop of deliciousness.  

Oh yes.

All you need to do now is wrap these babies up in a air tight container and enjoy in your morning coffee.

Mrs. Weber's Honey Biscotti

All Purpose Flour      2.5 cups

Sugar                        1.5 cups

Baking Powder                  2 t

Salt                                  3/4 t

Eggs                                     4

Honey                               1 T

Vanilla Extract                1.5 t

Vanilla Bean Paste         Dash

Optional Additives

Pistachios                    1/3 cup

Dried Cherries            1/3 cup

or

Slivered Almonds       1/2 cup

Chocolate Chunks      1/3 cup

Happy Birthday Gran!

I Love You!

ENJOY!