biscotti recipes

I've been doing variants on the Moosewood biscotti recipes for a while, and have gotten fairly comfortable tweaking ingredients in and out. Some of the variations (ginger/hazelnut/whole wheat pastry flour) have worked out very well, some have not.

Last night I used the power mixer to make a (blueberry/pecan/whole wheat pastry flour+oat flour/brown sugar) version of the Moosewood currant+pecan biscotti. Um, not a good idea; the earthy-crunchy taste of the whole wheat flour, the oat flour, and the brown sugar combine to overpower almost everything else in the biscotti (except the pecans, which are already pretty earthy-crunchy) -- unless I hit a blueberry, I can't even tell it's there.

But the power mixer worked out very nicely, and I can always eat my mistakes and follow up with some different variation.

The core biscotti recipe, btw, is

Earthy-Crunchy biscotti

Start heating the oven to 350°F, and Mix

Two eggs
One egg white

Stir in

One tablespoon anise seed.
One teaspoon almond extract (can also substitute 1 teaspoon orange extract)
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper.
1 cup sugar

Sift in

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4th teaspoon salt

After conversion to dough, mix in

Somewhere in the ballpark of 1/2 cup hazelnuts
Somewhere in the ballpark of 1/2 cup finely chopped candied ginger
Somewhere in the ballpark of 1/3 cup raisins

Grease a big cookie sheet, then form the dough into a 3 inch diameter cylinder, which you then flatten to a 1 inch high loaf on the cookie sheet. (It doesn't have to be one loaf, of course; if it's too long split it into two or three loafs).

Cook it for 35-40 minutes, let cool (on a cooling rack) for 15 minutes, cut into thin slices, then toast those thin slices in the oven for 15-20 minutes at 325°F.

Cool them, eat them, and terrify your Atkins-diet friends. You get bonus points if you use nothing but organic (offer does not apply to USDA organic) ingredients.

Extra Extra bonus points if you don't try this recipe until you've verified that I've not left anything out from the Moosewood original.

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