Hazelnut Biscotti
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup hazelnuts, toasted
1 egg mixed with 1 tablespoon milk
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease one large cookie sheet.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, soda, and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, combine the eggs, sugar, vanilla and almond extract. Stir in the flour mixture, then add the hazelnuts. Form the dough into a ball and chill for 1 hour.
Divide the dough in half. Form each dough into a log about 12 inches long and place both on cookie sheet. Press down on log to make cookie about 1/2 inch thick. Brush cookies with egg-milk mixture. Bake for about 25 minutes. Cookies should be golden. Remove to a rack and let cool. Reduce oven to 325 degrees F.
When cool, cut cookies into 1/2-inch slices, cutting at a diagonal. Place cookies upright on the cookie sheet and return to the oven for 15 more minutes. Cookies should be completely dry. Store in sealable bags or tins.
3 comments:
I have numerous comments to make regarding this post, mostly deviations I chose to take, which I recommend.
First of all, since there is no butter or oil in this recipe, freshly toasting the hazelnuts makes all the difference in the world and it is so fucking easy. I just bought a little tub of hazelnuts from Whole Foods. They come with the skin on, but you just put the little fuckers on a cookie sheet and put them in a preheated 350 degree oven for 12 minutes. Afterwards, dump them into a clean tea towel, wrap them up and let them steam their skins loose for a minute. Then, while they are still in the towels rub the nuts between your hands. Use way more force than you would normally when rubbing nuts because, in this case, you're trying to rub the skin off. Toss the nuts in a plastic ziploc bag and smash them with a hammer, heavy pot, or the heel of your gargantuan cankle. To see a more objective walk thru, type "how to toast hazelnuts" into google which should direct you to an article at epicurious.com "To Toast and Skin Hazelnuts".
Now for the easy deviations I took: Don't sift shit, just mix the dry stuff in a big, bigger than you'd think bowl. While I typically like to use the smallest bowl possible to make the dishes easier (you'll notice I pay attention to clean up, unlike my reckless boyfriend), in this case it's important to have plenty of room to well mix the dry ingredients without dusting your kitchen in flour.
Ew, don't grease anything. Greasing with butter or PAM (ew) means clean up. Instead of greasing use parchment paper. If you don't have any get off your ass and go buy some, it's wonderfully diverse and if you're that cheap you can reuse one sheet several times. While you're at it, park as far away as possible when you get to the grocery store so you don't have to put up with dipshits who can't drive and to provide you the extra walking you know you need. Make sure you get unbleached parchment, no one wants cancer cookies.
Don't worry about the wall thing, just wad the dough up and chill for an hour so later you can form it into logs and it won't slump into a puddle.
THE BEST PART OF THIS RECIPE is that while the dough is chilling for an hour you can clean shit!!!!! I hate having to clean AFTER eating, it's like having to go through foreplay after you just nutted, lame. You can clean all your shit while still day dreaming about the wonderful cookies to come. And if you use parchment paper, all you have to do at the end is wipe down the cookie sheet.
Lastly, make sure you use a stand up mixer to make things easy, unless your arms need work and you have nothing better to do. Make sure you switch hands so you don't look like Quasimodo.
I am not sure the world can handle both of you as master chefs...
Also, taking the skin off hazelnuts is a pain in the ass. You can buy them already skin-free...so much better.
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