Chocolate Almond Biscotti

Its time for the Sweet Punch and this month’s challenge was Chocolate Almond Biscotti from Joy of Baking.

But before I move on to that, let me tell you a little about our weekend excursion to the ‘Chocolate Factory’, well, Cadbury World to be precise since the visit to the factory was just a part of the whole experience. We went on a Saturday and reached there after a long drive of more than 2 hours, but it was totally worth it. Being a complete chocolate lover I was more excited than little S, more so because I had a very good excuse to eat as many chocolates as I wanted on the day. How can you restrict eating chocolates when you go to a chocolate factory. So in short I had my fill without feeling guilty at all, collected some more to bring back home and generally had a great ‘chocolatey’ time and brought back this mug to motivate S to drink up her milk!

Coming back to the challenge, as usual I made it on the last day, hoping all the time that I dont make any mistakes as I didn't have enough time to make it again. Thankfully everything worked out fine. This was my second experience with a Biscotti and it made me wonder why I dont make them often as they are very easy to make, take very little time & preparations and have very little room for going wrong.

Chocolate Almond Biscotti

 

Makes about 12-15

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cup plain flour
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• a pinch of salt
• 2 Eggs
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup blanched almonds
• 110 gm Chocolate, coarsely chopped (or chocolate chips)

Method:

Pre heat the oven to 180 deg C (160 deg for an electric fan assisted oven). Line a baking sheet with baking paper.

Sieve together the flour, baking powder and salt and keep aside. Roast the almonds and chop them coarsely (you can pulse them in a grinder but make sure they are not powdered).

In a bowl, combine the eggs and the sugar and beat with an electric mixer until the mixture turns pale & fluffy. It should leave a trail when you lift the mixer.

Add the flour mixture to this and mix well. Add the almonds & chocolate and fold in.

Transfer this dough to the baking sheet and shape it into a log (roughly) and bake this in the pre heated oven for about 20-25 minutes.

Transfer the cooked log on to a wire rack and let it cool for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile turn down the oven temperature to 165 deg C (145 deg for an electric fan assisted oven).

Cut the log into slices (about an inch thick) and place them on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove the sheet from oven and turn the biscotti the other way and bake for another 10 min until they start turning brown.

Remove on to the wire rack and cool them completely.

My Notes: I used Dark chocolate and followed the exact recipe otherwise. The Biscotti that I got felt very much like the ‘Rusk’ we used to have with the tea, so I guess I got a good result, as Biscotti (singular:Biscotto) is the Italian version of the Rusk!