Almond Biscotti

I have been making biscottis quite often these days. These just seemed to me to be a healthier alternative to the cookie and a good snack. The only difficult part is to have enough patience to complete the double baking process. Biscotti is Italian for cookie/biscuit.

Ingredients

Dry ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup sliced blanched almonds

1 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

Wet ingredients

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence/ pure vanilla extract

Method

Combine all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix together. In another bowl break the 3 eggs and whisk them. Add the vanilla essence and mix. Add this egg mixture to the dry ingredients slowly and mix. Once you have added half the egg mixture, add the almonds. The resultant dough is a bit sticky.

Shape the dough into 2 logs approximately 10 x 3 inches long. Bake these two logs at 350° F for about 40 minutes. The logs will be light brown in color. Take these out onto a cooling rack and let it cool down for 10 minutes. Once the logs have cooled down sufficiently to handle, cut these into biscottis to the desired size. Generally about 1 X 3 inches in size. Place these back onto your baking sheet and bake them for about 10-20 minutes in the oven at 350° F.

Let the biscottis cool and enjoy!

Tips

Don't overmix the dough. Mix it just enough so that all the ingredients come together. Coat your hands with a little flour to work with the sticky dough to avoid getting your hands messy. The longer you bake the biscotti during the second baking, the harder it will get. Cut the logs into biscottis using a serrated knife to minimize crumbling and resultant crumbs.

These taste great with a cup of milk or coffee.