Italian Cities: Prato - Biscotti

 

Originating in Prato, these hard, brittle cookies get their name from the Latin word 'biscoctus' meaning twice cooked. I've made these before for my sister Sally's birthday years ago but I'm happy to re-visit especially with some extra chocolate drizzled on top!

Ingredients:

100 g almonds

315 g plain flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

4 large eggs

150 g caster sugar

55 g packed brown sugar

1 tsp. almond extract

175 g chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 180 C and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Mix the flour, baking powder, bicarb, cinnamon and salt in a bowl then add the eggs, sugars and almond extract.

Mix well then add the almonds and half the chocolate chips.

Spread the biscotti dough out onto your baking tray, shaping it like a rough oblong.

Bake for 15 minutes then remove from the oven, let cool slightly and slice into inch wide slices.

Turn the slices onto their sides and bake for another 10 minutes.

Flip them onto their other sides and bake for a final 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for 5 minutes. Melt the remaining chocolate chips and drizzle over your finished biscotti.

The recipe said the biscotti could be kept for a few weeks but it never made it past a few hours! JD, Valindor and I all really enjoyed these Italian biscuits. We didn't dip them in anything as is traditional so now I'll have to make some more to try with some hot chocolate. They're hard on your teeth without a drink to soften them but it's nice to eat something with a different texture to usual biscuits. I started off drizzling the chocolate delicately but soon descended into splodging it on. There were no complaints of too much chocolate though. Very nice!