Authentic Biscotti

As mentioned earlier, I burned out my first pizzelle iron. On the day that it gasped its last gasp, I had already made the cookie dough, so I had to find something else to do with it. I got out my Italian cookbook and discovered that biscotti had almost the same ingredients, so I adjusted the flour and learned to make biscotti.

I still have that cookbook, but the recipes I use now are from Recipezaar. “Authentic” biscotti is half of Recipe #300513, by Summerlea; it uses anise seed and almonds.

Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• ½ c. pure olive oil
• 1 c. sugar
• 2 T. anise seed
• 3 ¼ c. all-purpose flour
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• ¾ c. almonds, chopped or sliced

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°. Grind the anise seed with a mortar and pestle. Beat eggs, then add the oil, sugar and anise.

Mix in the remaining ingredients. Lightly flour and roll the dough into one or two logs 2 inches in diameter.

Place on a greased baking sheet or parchment paper. Bake 25 minutes. Remove from the oven, slice diagonally into ½ inch thick slices. Bake 10 minutes on sliced side, then flip and bake until slightly browned.

To harden further, dry in the oven at 250°.

Variants

Use chocolate chips instead of almonds. (According to this recipe, you should be able to go as high as 1 ½ c., but I didn’t risk it.)