Nobody bakes like my Granny. Especially me. I may have been to culinary school and worked in restaurants but pastry is always a big challenge for me. I don’t have the magic touch that she does, when she’d create stunning cakes topped with images of our house, including a little walnut stone path down the center of the cake. So I tend to stick with straightforward recipes like this one.
Full disclosure, I adapted this recipe from a lowfat biscotti recipe. Since I only have 1 egg per week, it limits the baking that I can do. Most cakes are out, since they use more than 1 egg. Same thing for meringues. So I tweaked the biscotti recipe a bit, using ground toasted hazelnuts instead of almonds. The toasted hazelnuts have so much more flavor than raw almonds and since they’re fatty too, they give the biscotti a nice richness in texture. They keep nicely in a tin so you can make them last the day!
Chocolate, Cherry and Hazelnut Biscotti
18 to 20 biscotti
Adapted from Cook Yourself Thin’s Chocolate and Cranberry Biscotti recipe
INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup unbleached wheat flour
1/3 cup finely ground hazelnuts
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3 cup dried cherries
1/3 cup toasted hazelnuts, halved
METHOD
Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, ground hazelnuts, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.
In a standing mixer with a whisk attachment, beat the egg and sugar on high until pale and thick. Add the vanilla, then reduce speed to low. Slowly add the flour, and beat until just combined to form a dough. Stir in the cherries and hazelnuts.
Scrape the dough onto a baking sheet lined with a Silpat or sheet of parchment paper. Dampen your hands and pat the dough into a flat rectangle. Bake until puffed and dry to the touch, about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for 15 minutes, leaving the oven on. Transfer the rectangle to a cutting board and cut into slices 1/4 inch thick.
Lay slices flat on unlined baking sheet, and bake until dry, about 10 minutes. Then turn over the slices and bake on the other side for 10 more minutes. Remove from the oven an allow to cool to room temperature.
The Ration Diaries 