For this month’s Home Baker’s Challenge, Priya Suresh @ Priya’s Versatile Recipes wanted us to bake some crispy & crunchy Biscottis. She gave us options to bake either savory or sweet biscottis. Since I have a houseful of sweet toothed people, I made the sweet biscotti. I was excited when I saw Priya’s picks for this month and I wanted to bake both sweet and savory biscottis, but couldn’t find time to make the savory one. I’m glad that I was able to make the sweet version that was liked by all at home. Hopefully I’ll make the savory ones too some time soon.
Biscotti | Italian Cookie:
Biscotti literally means ’twice baked/ cooked’ in Italian. They are also known as ‘cantucci’ and are almond cookies that originated in Tuscan, Italy. These cookies are double baked, oblong shaped cookies that are crunchy and dry. They are perfect for dunking in a drink - coffee, tea or even wine. They are many variations/ recipes for biscotti. Make them plain or add dried fruit, chocolate chips, cranberries or nuts to make them exciting.
Eggless Biscotti:
I love baking eggless cookies and cakes, like this tutti-fruity cookies or this eggless candy cake. To make this almond cranberry biscotti recipe eggless, I used egg replacer powder. The cookies turned out just perfect. I feel comfortable turning a recipe with up to 2 eggs into an eggless one with egg replacer powder. If the recipe calls for more than 2, I feel the replacer powder doesn’t give the necessary structure to the baked treat.
Almond Cranberry Biscotti:
I used King Arthur flour’s American Style Vanilla Biscotti recipe and added 2 of my favorite ingredients. Almond and cranberry are a great combo. Crunchy, nutty almonds with sweet-tangy cranberries play each other well in recipes in both taste and texture. I also added some fiori di sicilia extract. This extract is a combination of citrus and vanilla with a pleasingly floral aroma. It almost feels like holiday season tasting these biscottis. Italian biscotti are hard, but these American style biscottis are light and crunchy. The recipe is very similar to that of drop cookies.
