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My Christmas Gift to You: How to Bake Your Own Italian Biscotti

JAMES LUPORI YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD REALTOR COOKS BISCOTTI

I was a professional cook for many years prior to my life as a Realtor. Some of my fondest memories were in the kitchen helping my mom with meals. I began cooking in restaurants when I was 16. Over the years I’ve learned how to prepare a huge array of cuisines and during the holiday season I love to bake Italian Biscotti or “twice cooked” cookies.

A lot of people ask me how to make biscotti because they seem complicated to most people. The fact is, biscotti aren’t hard to make. They do tend to be ingredient intensive, yet, the ingredients are fairly easy to purchase at your local grocery store.

I’ve wanted to do a visual explanation of the process for a long time. Finally (because we’ve been snowed-in for the last two days) I had time to document how I bake biscotti! Really, I’m really excited about this. Let’s start with the recipe:

4 whole eggs

1lb (500 g) all purpose flour

12 oz (350 g) sugar

7 oz (200 g) whole almonds

1 tblsp unsalted butter

1 oz (15 g) oil

pinch of salt (aprox 1/8 tsp)

2 tsp baking powder

Anise seeds or fresh vanilla bean or both

Heat the oven to 350 degrees (180 C)

Place the flour on a work surface, make a well, add the salt, sugar, butter & oil. Beat the eggs in the well then incorporate the flour little by little mixing the ingredients together. At the end, add the almonds and the baking powder. Work the dough until smooth. At this point, I divide the dough into 4 pieces and then divide the first large piece in half. Roll the dough into two long pieces (ropes). Place them on a baking sheet, then brush them with a beaten egg and sprinkle with any large sugar you have. Bake for about 40 minutes at 350 until golden-brown. Take them out of the oven (leave the oven on). Let the baked logs cool for a few minutes, then cut each log into 1/2 inch pieces. Put the biscotti on the baking sheet and bake again to dry for about 10 minutes. And there you go…………………..yummy!

I’ve created a slide show showing you how to bake bisccotti. Just click on the picture below to see how it’s done. I sincerely hope you try to make biscotti in the near future. They are wonderful with coffee, tea and wines. My wife loves to dip biscotti in wine. In Tuscany, my relatives will serve biscotti with a sweet wine called vin santo. It’s absolutely wonderful.

HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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