Now that our Whole Foods has started stocking hazelnuts again, I can make hazelnut desserts whenever I feel like it! I recently had a bad experience with some chocolate hazelnut biscotti (at least I was able to repurpose the biscotti crumbs into the delicious crust of a Mississippi Mud Pie), and I wanted to give hazelnut biscotti another shot. I decided to try Gale Gand's recipe for "Toasted Hazelnut-Almond Biscotti" from Butter Sugar Flour Eggs.
This is a simple recipe that requires a food processor, but no mixer. You sift together dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar), and grind some of the sifted mixture with almonds in the food processor. Then you add the ground almonds back into the rest of the flour mixture, add chopped chocolate and whole toasted hazelnuts, and mix in the wet ingredients (eggs, vanilla, almond extract, and Amaretto).
I found this dough quite difficult to mix because there are so many mix-ins that there is barely enough dough to hold everything together (the recipe has two cups of flour and one cup of sugar, but also two cups of chocolate and one and a half cups of hazelnuts). The cookbook says, "The dough will seem dry, but it will come together as you work it." Interestingly enough, the version of the recipe on the Food Network website is identical to the cookbook version except that it says if the dough doesn't come together, you should add up to a quarter cup of water. Since I was baking from the cookbook version of the recipe, I just patiently worked the dough with my hands until I could finally get it to stay together and shape it into logs.
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These biscotti are outstanding, some of the best I've ever made. They have a nice dry, crisp, texture, but they are still light, tender, and easy to eat (even if you're not dunking them in anything). The one downside to the dry and light texture is that these cookies create a lot of crumbs. I love the big pieces of toasted hazelnut, although they pretty much drown out the almond flavor. I do think the ratio of mix-ins to dough is a little too high and I would probably cut down the amount of chocolate in the future. This would give the finished biscotti a less cluttered appearance, smoother edges, and make the dough easier to handle as well. But no matter what they look like, they are delicious!
Recipe: "Toasted Hazelnut-Almond Biscotti" from Butter Sugar Flour Eggs: Whimsical Irresistible Desserts,by Gale Gand, recipe available here.
Previous Posts:
This is a simple recipe that requires a food processor, but no mixer. You sift together dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar), and grind some of the sifted mixture with almonds in the food processor. Then you add the ground almonds back into the rest of the flour mixture, add chopped chocolate and whole toasted hazelnuts, and mix in the wet ingredients (eggs, vanilla, almond extract, and Amaretto).
I found this dough quite difficult to mix because there are so many mix-ins that there is barely enough dough to hold everything together (the recipe has two cups of flour and one cup of sugar, but also two cups of chocolate and one and a half cups of hazelnuts). The cookbook says, "The dough will seem dry, but it will come together as you work it." Interestingly enough, the version of the recipe on the Food Network website is identical to the cookbook version except that it says if the dough doesn't come together, you should add up to a quarter cup of water. Since I was baking from the cookbook version of the recipe, I just patiently worked the dough with my hands until I could finally get it to stay together and shape it into logs.
.JPG)
Recipe: "Toasted Hazelnut-Almond Biscotti" from Butter Sugar Flour Eggs: Whimsical Irresistible Desserts,by Gale Gand, recipe available here.
Previous Posts:
- "Unfortunately, These Aren't Number One: Biscotti #2," October 13, 2011.
- "Biscotti Revisited: Hazelnut Cinnamon Chip Biscotti," June 2, 2011.
- "Time to Raid the Pistachio Stash: Pistachio Cherry Biscotti," June 1, 2011.
- "Munchy Crunchy My Dear Snackers: Savory Cheddar Biscotti," October 2, 2010.
- "The Problem with the Girl Scouts," March 2, 2009.
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