Tuesdays With Dorie: Biscotti

Happy Tuesday!

This week we made Lenox Almond Biscotti for Tuesdays with Dorie, courtesy of Gretchen of Canela & Comino. I have never been a fan of biscotti because I don't get the point of a hard crunchy cookie that usually doesn't have any chocolate in it. What a waste of calories! I'm more of a chewy and gooey kind of cookie girl. But maybe it's the time of year, or maybe I'm secretly a little burned out with chocolate after brownie week, (don't worry, I'll recover by tomorrow for sure) but I think I fell in love with my pumpkin spice biscotti. I had it for breakfast this morning dipped in my caramel hot chocolate. It warmed me right up after being outside in the 36 degree weather. Yes, 36 degrees is what my car said at 7:30 this am. At least the snow melted from yesterday's storm. I'm still a little new to Utah weather, but isn't it a little early for this??? I swear fall only lasted like, 3 days! Back to my biscotti...this was some seriously good stuff. I also made chocolate craisin biscotti and it was pretty good, but I'm not going to miss it when it's gone like I will my pumpkin spice ones.

I had a little bit of a hard time with the form of the biscotti though. The recipe tells you to bake the dough in a loaf, let it cool, slice it, and then bake it again, only this time when you bake the slices, you have them standing up like a marching band. Mine started out in great formation, but then you know how in the movies when someone in the first row of the marching band stops suddenly and then no one is paying attention so they all bump into him and everyone falls over with their big tubas and drums and stuff, well that's kind of what happened to my biscotti once they got in the oven. They all fell over on top of each other, so they don't look exactly like most biscotti you might find, but don't judge a book by it's cover. It's the taste of them that counts.

Remember: For the full recipe of Dorie's Lenox Almond Biscotti, you'll have to get the cookbook. Believe me, it's worth it. It's the Dorie Greenspan Baking From My Home to Yours. (see amazon's link on the right side of my site for more info) You can also get it from Gretchen's Blog. But here's how I did my own renditions:

Pumkpin Spice Biscotti

Add 1 tsp pumpkin spice to flour mixture before adding wet ingredients

Chocolate Craisin Biscotti

Add 1 T cocoa to flour mixture
Add 1/3 C craisins to dough


I chose to reduce the almond extract to 1/2 tsp and omit sliced almonds altogether for both recipes

I'm definitely looking forward to another round of pumpkin spice biscotti and caramel hot chocolate tonight before I crawl into bed. Happy dunking!

Don't forget to check out the other Tuesdays With Dorie bakers on the blogroll.

ps. a special happy birthday to my good friend, Laina! You know how sometimes you have friends that no matter how much time has passed, or how different the paths of life have taken you, you will always have that tight friendship? She is one of those friends of mine. Love you, Lai! Hope you have a great day!