Recipe#8058

Title: Biscotti 37

From: Albert & Lita Lotzkar alotzkar@home.com 
 Newsgroups: rec.food.recipes 
 Subject: Biscotti 
 Date: 18 Nov 1998 07:52:37 -0700 
 Message-ID: <3650E2BD.1A07FFC0@home.com> 

1 cup almonds, whole, unblanched
 2 cups unbleached flour, unsifted
 1 cup sugar
 1 teaspoon baking soda
 1 pinch salt
 3 large eggs
 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
 This recipe makes about 4 dozen very crunchy biscotti.  I've never
 put chocolate on the biscotti.  You need two 12x15 inch (approx.)
 cookie sheets.  Butter and flour ONE of the cookie sheets.  The
 oven should be at 350 to roast the almonds, and 300 to bake the
 biscotti.  Total baking time for the biscotti is about 2 hours.
 You also need to have handy and ready a surface for kneading the
 biscotti dough and a surface for cutting the baked biscotti.
 Roast the almonds in a 350 degree often until lightly browned (10-15
 minutes).  Cool nuts completely. Lower the oven temperature to 300.
 In a  medium bowl, stir together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar,
 baking soda, salt) just to mix.  Separate out about 1/2 cup of this
 mixture, and spread SOME of the reserved 1/2 cup onto your kneading
 surface.  In a small bowl  or measuring cup, lightly beat together
 the eggs and vanilla.  Make a well in the flour mixture in the
 medium bowl and pour in the egg/vanilla mixture.  Stir the flour
 into the egg mixture from the outside of the well.  Continue
 combining until the mixture is too stiff to stir.
 Turn the mixture out onto your kneading surface, which should
 already be floured with some of the reserved dry ingredients.  With
 floured hands (use some of the reserved dry ingredients for this
 if you want), fold the  dough over itself until it coheres.  Use
 the rest of the reserved dry ingredients for your hands and the
 work surface, if necessary.  Press the  nuts into the dough and
 keep folding the dough over itself until the nuts  are evenly
 distributed.  Let the dough sit a few minutes so the flour absorbs
 the liquid completely, making the dough less sticky.  Divide the
 dough into 3 equal pieces. Roll each piece with your hands so that
 the pieces are elongated into strips about 1" wide and 12"-14"
 long.
 Place the strips on the buttered/floured baking sheet, leaving
 about 4" between each strip.  If you want somewhat wider strips,
 flatten the strips with your hands to a width of 2".  Bake for
 about 50 minutes at 300.  Let  the strips cool for 5 minutes, and
 them remove them with a spatula to a cutting surface.  Using a
 sharp knife and making downward strokes, cut the strips into diagonal
 bars about 1/2" wide.   Lay the cut biscotti on their sides on the
 two baking sheets.  Toast 35-50 minutes, depending on how dark (and
 crunchy?) you want them.
 To make much wider strips, divide the dough into two strips, same
 length (12"-14").  Each cookie will be about 6" long.  This should
 make about 2 dozen cookies.