Biscotti. Reminds me of coffee shops, my early mornings into uni, and my commutes into work when I was employed as a teacher. When Costa Coffee especially, but Starbucks as well, had a fairly regular share in my wages. When I didn’t want just a coffee, or the classic coffee and muffin combination, I’d opt for a biscotti. The crunchy, originally Italian, biscuit for dunkin’.
Flicking through my Cook Yourself Thin cookbook, I came across a recipe that served biscotti as an accompaniment to some fruit and Greek yoghurt concoction. I didn’t want to make the whole dish but biscotti seemed interesting. Sweet and fairly healthy; I didn’t add any fat as it wasn’t listed! My kind of thing. As I had all the ingredients, bar the almonds at home, I decided to make a mental note to try and make it soon. Whilst the recipe listed 150g of shelled whole almonds, in the ‘tip’ section of the recipe, it stated that any nut variety could also be used in the recipe. Hence, I opted for about a half-half combination of brazil nuts (which I had at home) and whole almonds to make up my 150 grams nut content. I was pleased as well, as I had bought some fennel seeds a while back after watching some episodes of Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals on 4oD. I didn’t really like the fennel seeds/sardines amalgamation that I had tried from the show so I’ve had them sitting in my food cupboard, unused, for a little while; therefore, t’was good that they’d be getting a little outing from their habitat and being of some culinary use! Waste not, and all that.
So the recipe ingredient list went like this: 150g shelled whole almonds, 10-15g fennel seeds, 250g plain flour, a generous pinch of baking powder, 150g caster sugar and 3 medium eggs. The methodology stated that I should tip all the ingredients, bar the eggs, into an electric mixer and mix them together. I don’t have an electric mixer (yet!) so I used my wooden spoon and my cake mixing bowl from Poundland (or was it the 99p store?) - a piece of cheap kitchen kit which is turning out to be quite the gem. Then, I was instructed to mix the eggs together and stir it through the flour mixture, which I did.
Next, I shaped the mixture into a large, flat log, ‘about 30cm long, 12cm wide and 2cm high’. Whilst it stated ‘about’, which in most people’s minds translates to an approximation, I took out my ruler and measured my lovely log! Yes, I do know what 30cm looks like! I grew up in Britain. 30 and 15cm rulers are to underlining headlines, to maths lessons and to the primary and secondary education of this country, what bread is to butter! I just wanted to err on the side of caution and get the recipe just right okay? J So I got a ruler from my husband’s desk and measured my log. I realise now that I somehow read 10cm high and not 12. So my measuring may have been accurate but my reading of the actual measurement: flawed!
Anyway, that was all my prep done; so I popped my measured log onto a baking tray and in it went into my pre-heated-to-a-180oC oven for about 20mins. When I took the log out, I sliced it thinly diagonally. I couldn’t slice it ‘very thinly’, as the recipe listed, as I found that it would break up a little. I would say I got around 20 slices of biscotti from my log, whereas the recipe states that it makes about 25-30! 25-30 if you want Cadbury’s Fingers thin! Mine looked the size of the biscotti I had eaten in coffee shops so that was good enough for me...My 20 thin diagonal slices then went back in the oven for ten minutes. But I found that they weren’t done after their 10 minute oven return so I turned them over to cook through the other side as well; so they were in the oven for about 15 minutes in all. Turning them over had the desired effect: some were ever-so-slightly beginning to brown and that was fine by me - better well done than underdone, I say.
I was quite pleased with my biscotti – the fennel seeds, I wasn’t initially keen on, but I found that they gave the biscotti a refreshing lift in taste. The texture was nice too – hard yet crumbly – and they tasted good dunked in a cup of tea. My husband liked them too; I gave him some along with his lunch so upon his return home, he commented ‘those biscuit things were nice, really good to snack on’. So I think I’ll be making ‘those biscuit things’ again. I might try omitting the fennel seeds and adding little bits of chocolate next time, as chocolate and nuts are such good flavour and texture friends.
Flicking through my Cook Yourself Thin cookbook, I came across a recipe that served biscotti as an accompaniment to some fruit and Greek yoghurt concoction. I didn’t want to make the whole dish but biscotti seemed interesting. Sweet and fairly healthy; I didn’t add any fat as it wasn’t listed! My kind of thing. As I had all the ingredients, bar the almonds at home, I decided to make a mental note to try and make it soon. Whilst the recipe listed 150g of shelled whole almonds, in the ‘tip’ section of the recipe, it stated that any nut variety could also be used in the recipe. Hence, I opted for about a half-half combination of brazil nuts (which I had at home) and whole almonds to make up my 150 grams nut content. I was pleased as well, as I had bought some fennel seeds a while back after watching some episodes of Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals on 4oD. I didn’t really like the fennel seeds/sardines amalgamation that I had tried from the show so I’ve had them sitting in my food cupboard, unused, for a little while; therefore, t’was good that they’d be getting a little outing from their habitat and being of some culinary use! Waste not, and all that.
So the recipe ingredient list went like this: 150g shelled whole almonds, 10-15g fennel seeds, 250g plain flour, a generous pinch of baking powder, 150g caster sugar and 3 medium eggs. The methodology stated that I should tip all the ingredients, bar the eggs, into an electric mixer and mix them together. I don’t have an electric mixer (yet!) so I used my wooden spoon and my cake mixing bowl from Poundland (or was it the 99p store?) - a piece of cheap kitchen kit which is turning out to be quite the gem. Then, I was instructed to mix the eggs together and stir it through the flour mixture, which I did.
Next, I shaped the mixture into a large, flat log, ‘about 30cm long, 12cm wide and 2cm high’. Whilst it stated ‘about’, which in most people’s minds translates to an approximation, I took out my ruler and measured my lovely log! Yes, I do know what 30cm looks like! I grew up in Britain. 30 and 15cm rulers are to underlining headlines, to maths lessons and to the primary and secondary education of this country, what bread is to butter! I just wanted to err on the side of caution and get the recipe just right okay? J So I got a ruler from my husband’s desk and measured my log. I realise now that I somehow read 10cm high and not 12. So my measuring may have been accurate but my reading of the actual measurement: flawed!
Anyway, that was all my prep done; so I popped my measured log onto a baking tray and in it went into my pre-heated-to-a-180oC oven for about 20mins. When I took the log out, I sliced it thinly diagonally. I couldn’t slice it ‘very thinly’, as the recipe listed, as I found that it would break up a little. I would say I got around 20 slices of biscotti from my log, whereas the recipe states that it makes about 25-30! 25-30 if you want Cadbury’s Fingers thin! Mine looked the size of the biscotti I had eaten in coffee shops so that was good enough for me...My 20 thin diagonal slices then went back in the oven for ten minutes. But I found that they weren’t done after their 10 minute oven return so I turned them over to cook through the other side as well; so they were in the oven for about 15 minutes in all. Turning them over had the desired effect: some were ever-so-slightly beginning to brown and that was fine by me - better well done than underdone, I say.
I was quite pleased with my biscotti – the fennel seeds, I wasn’t initially keen on, but I found that they gave the biscotti a refreshing lift in taste. The texture was nice too – hard yet crumbly – and they tasted good dunked in a cup of tea. My husband liked them too; I gave him some along with his lunch so upon his return home, he commented ‘those biscuit things were nice, really good to snack on’. So I think I’ll be making ‘those biscuit things’ again. I might try omitting the fennel seeds and adding little bits of chocolate next time, as chocolate and nuts are such good flavour and texture friends.
