I love traditions, especially during the holiday season.
Every Christmas my baby sister comes over and we bake cookies and we always have a blast. For the past 5 years we’ve made these almond biscotti. I actually posted the recipe 5 years ago. These cookies are THE best biscotti recipe I’ve ever made. Just to show ya, it’s the only biscotti on my blog because no other recipe has come close to being as good. They’ve set the bar for biscotti baking. They are perfect in every way, except the size. Every time we make them we think that they should be shorter, but we never want to experiment with the recipe when we get together because we are usually making them for someone else. This year I finally altered the recipe before my sister came over.
You may think that it’s difficult to make biscotti but I promise you that they are easy. You do need a little time and patience though. My sister is a beginning baker and she does a great job every time she makes them. I’ll walk you through every step.
Step one, make the cookie dough just like any ordinary cookie recipe. Almond cake & pastry filling is made from corn syrup, sugar, water, almonds, evaporated milk and a few other ingredients. It’s different from almond paste so make sure you pick up the right ingredient. This cookie dough smells so good.
Next, roll the cookie dough out into 4 flat things (2 flat things per cookie sheet). To make this easier on everyone, I will call them logs from this point forward. I’m pretty sure that’s the wrong term, but it’s the best I could come up with. This is the only step that I changed from the original post. Originally I did 2 larger logs, which made the biscotti almost twice as wide as the ones in this post. This should go without saying, but if you prefer large and in charge biscotti, then feel free to use the original recipe. There is nothing wrong with big cookies and my husband actually prefers them that way. (Stay tuned for a ginormous cookie recipe coming soon.) I happen to think the these smaller sized ones are the perfect biscotti size (and my family agrees).
The next step is to bake them. I bake one tray at a time because I’ve found that with my oven (and I suspect most other ovens), the baking time will be longer if I bake both trays at the same time. If you’re in a rush and bake both trays at the same time then check your cookies for doneness because they may need more time than what the below recipe calls for.
Once the logs have cooled, slice them into pieces. This next step is what makes them biscotti. Biscotti means twice cooked, in Italian, so we need to bake them for a second time. The point of this second baking time is to dry them out without browning them too much, so make sure that you remember to lower the oven temperature before you put them back in the oven. You’ll also need to flip the biscotti over half way through this second baking time. I’ve always considered them to be oddly named because you really bake them three times if you count the part after flipping them over.
The biscotti in the picture below are the ones that my sister made. She topped hers with almond slices. I opted to skip the almond slices this time because I didn’t feel like dealing with the ones that fell off in the baking process. Either way, you can’t go wrong.
Voila, biscotti! Easy peezy, right? They are so tasty. And my favorite part is that they are hard (as biscotti should be) but not rock hard that you might break a tooth. If you aren’t into hard cookies you can still enjoy biscotti by dunking them in coffee. They are super delicious and soften up very quickly.
Almond Biscotti Recipe
(Makes about 46 cookies)
Ingredients:
- 5 cups all-purpose flour (equivalent to 1 pound, 5 ounces.)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup butter (equivalent to 1 and 1/2 sticks)
- 1 and 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 (12.5 ounce) can Solo Almond Cake & Pastry Filling
- (Optional topping) 1/2 cup sliced almonds
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Set them aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set the dry ingredients aside.
- In another large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar (for about 2 minutes, until it’s nice and fluffy).
- Mix in the eggs and almond filling.
- Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until well blended.
- Divide the cookie dough into 4 parts.
- Flour your baking surface and your hands. The cookie dough will be sticky so make sure that you flour your hands too.
- Shape the dough into 4 separate logs that are about 14 inches long and 2 and 1/2 to 3 inches wide each. Just make sure that it’s all the same width and thickness from end to end.
- Transfer each log to a prepared baking sheet. (They should fit two to a sheet.) You may need to re-shape the logs a bit on the baking sheet because they will lose some of their shape during the transfer.
- (Optional) Gently press 1/4 of the sliced almonds into the top of the shaped dough.
- Bake each prepared baking sheet in the preheated oven for 25 minutes.
- When you take the sheet out of the oven, let the biscotti cool on the baking sheet until handling them and cutting them doesn’t deform them.
- After both sheets (all four logs) are baked, drop the temperature of the oven to 300 degrees F.
- Remove the cooled biscotti logs from the baking sheets. Using a sharp knife, cut each log into 1 inch wide slices. I cut them on a slight diagonal so they have prettier edges.
- Arrange the slices, cut side down, back onto the baking sheet.
- Bake each sheet of slices at 300 degrees F for 9 minutes.
- Flip the slices over so the other cut side is facing down and bake them for an additional 9 minutes. This won’t be possible with the end pieces, so I recommend simply removing them from the pan at this point.
- Transfer the completed biscotti to a cooling rack and let them cool.
Slightly adapted from: The Novice Chef
