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Biscotti: Traditional and Whole Grain Kamut
Every December, people begin baking cookies with beautiful icing decorations, and I start baking biscotti. I love these rough-looking, never-staling cookies (and I’m not particularly skilled with icing) so biscotti are my favorite holiday cookie. As with almost every baked treat, though, I was indifferent toward them until I had them homemade. My mother-in-law sent my family a tin of her cranberry and pistachio biscotti dipped in chocolate and I was wowed by the abundant nuts and aromatics. I’ve been making her recipe (from Allrecipes) ever since, switching out the nuts and sometimes skipping the dried fruit and chocolate depending on my cravings and inventory. Here are my all-purpose flour and whole grain Kamut versions of this recipe — I did make some adjustments over the years. You can also check out my gluten free version here.
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Below are two batches of hazelnut biscotti. The darker dough is whole grain Kamut, which came out extra-nutty and a little more crunchy, and the lighter dough is all purpose flour. I only dipped a few in chocolate (more on that below).
Apart from flavor, I also love how simple it is to make biscotti. You need minimal equipment: a couple of bowls, a baking sheet, a spatula and a sharp knife. And the ingredients are probably already in your pantry: flour, baking powder, salt, eggs, oil, sugar, vanilla extract, a liquor such as brandy, rum or frangelico or almond extract, at least 3/4 cup of nuts and, if desired, 1/2 cup dried fruit.
Let’s talk a little bit about nuts.
Removing skins is an option for nuts like almonds and hazelnuts. The former is relatively easy: Submerge the almonds in boiling water for 1 minute, drain, rinse to cool and squeeze each almond out of its skin. The latter, hazelnuts, is more involved. You can watch an effective technique in this hazelnut biscotti video of Julia Child and Alice Medrich or follow the instructions I’ve transcribed here: Boil 2 cups of water, add 3 Tbsp baking soda, add the hazelnuts and boil them for 3 minutes (water turns black), drain the water, rinse and rub the skins off. Then dry the hazelnuts and toast them in the oven.
In case you’re wondering, I did try the biscotti recipe in the video but found it to be too crunchy for me. Also, I tested a different technique for peeling hazelnuts skins where you wrap them in a towel after toasting (to steam the skins) and then you rub them in the towel. This technique removed only about 20% of the hazelnut skins. A fine and easy technique if you don’t mind retaining most of the skin.
Toasting your nuts before you use them is not required but can enhance their flavor. If you use hazelnuts or almonds, the flavor shift with toasting is quite wonderful. Spread the nuts on a baking sheet, bake at 350F for 10-15 minutes. I do NOT recommend toasting pistachios, as it is very easy to burn and ruin them. Buying them already toasted is fine, though.
Chopping the nuts before adding them to the batter is important if you’re using hard or large nuts like hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts and pecans. You’ll be cutting half-cooked, delicate logs of biscotti into individual cookies after the first bake, and you don’t want big nuts blocking your knife. Softer and smaller nuts like pistachios and pine nuts don’t need to be chopped.
Decorating the biscotti by dipping them in chocolate is not in any way necessary. The biscotti taste fantastic on their own, and I sometimes like to dip them in tea and don’t want chocolate in that equation. That said, it’s really easy to melt chocolate in a mug in the microwave and dip the biscotti in it, and it does add an exciting decadence to the cookie. Here are instructions for half-dipping half of your batch of biscotti: Melt 4 ounces (~114g) of chopped dark chocolate in mug. Use the microwave in 15-30 second increments, stirring in between. If the chocolate re-hardens as you’re dipping, pop the mug back in the microwave for 20 seconds and clean up the sides of the mug with a spatula. I like to use a mug because they tend to be microwave safe, and the narrow and somewhat deep shape makes for an efficient, less messy process. You’ll still want to work over the same parchment you baked on if possible.
Fun facts about biscotti: Biscotti comes from Latin and means twice cooked. Biscotti are usually dipped in coffee or dessert wine, vin santo, and classic biscotti are made with almonds. The Roman Legions traveled with biscotti because of the cookie’s durability. Italians today actually call biscotti cantucci, whereas biscotti is any type of cookie. You can learn more about biscotti’s history here.
Biscotti: Traditional and Whole Grain Kamut
Biscotti are one of my favorite cookies. They're incredibly easy to make and taste so good when homemade with abundant nuts, dried fruit and aromatics.
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Biscotti: Traditional and Whole Grain Kamut