Almond and Choco-chip Biscotti

The festivity and chilly winter in US are gearing me in my baking mood. Meanwhile, my 10 months old infant is keeping me super busy with his fast crawls and babbles. He sometimes grabs my attention to the extent that he doesn’t allow me to blink away from him. That’s so possessive of him and I probably love it the most now. However, what brought this post of mine is not some planned Christmas massive baking or a party. My husband played for me an absolute masterpiece for food bloggers, “Julie and Julia”. This had a sudden urge in me to bake these lovelies. Now, why Biscotti? Why not some other cookies? Cause it’s Christmas time and these Biscotti’s have stolen my heart and mind ever since I have tasted them this summer. Before that it was just a name which I had heard in many movies. So, here I’m making almond and choco-chip Biscotti.

These Italian crisp Biscotti are the double baked cookies which it literally means. The double baked Biscotti are traditionally made out of almonds. I wanted was to desperately bake the chocolate ones, but my pantry missed the cocoa powder. Hence, I dropped the idea and baked the basic ones with almonds and choco-chips.

Ingredients:

1. All purpose flour – 2 cups
2. Eggs – 3 large ones
3. Brown sugar – 1 cup
4. Butter (softened)- 1 stick (100 gms)
5. Baking powder – 1 tsp
6. Vanilla extract – 1 tsp
7. Salt – 1tsp
8. Choco-chips – 1 cup
9. Almonds (toasted and roughly chopped) – 1 cup
10. Egg wash – (made out of beating one egg with 2 tbsp of milk)

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1. Preheat the oven for 30 mins at a temperature of 180°C or 350 F.
2. There after mix the butter and sugar, until the sugar dissolves properly.

   

   

3. Beat the eggs and whisk it in the butter sugar mixture.

   

4. Sieve the dry ingredients (flour and baking soda), add the vanilla extract to the whisked mixture and knead a dough similar to the ones you make for cookies.

   

   

   

5. Add the chopped almonds and choco-chips to the dough.

   

6. If the rolls appear to sticky, knead a bit more with the dry flour. In a baking tray take two elongated bread rolls shaped dough and brush the rolls with the egg wash, so that the cookie gets a wonderful glaze and let it bake for 25 mins.

   

   

   

   

7. Cut the bread roll shaped cookies into the Biscotti form as shown in the image and bake it again for 15-20 mins.

   

   

Hurray!!, you have the fresh, crisp Biscotti ready. Simply dunk it in your favorite tea or coffee and enjoy it this Christmas season. I bet you are going to have the best tea time snack for yourself.