Chocolate Almond Biscotti

I have so far only one confirmed biscotti recipe - Almond Chocolate Chips. Having said that, I had experimented with different cut size, different baking time etc. I think (I hope) I know which is the best combination. Since both MC and MFG also liked that recipe, it's a sure pass.

I've tried baking a chocolate base biscotti the last time, with pecan and chocolate chips (I can't seem to be able to forgo chocolate chips), but it was not good, leave alone a very troublesome baking method.

For curiosity sake, I want to try baking a chocolate base biscotti one last time (at least until I find a recipe that is so convincing, or maybe something from Jamie Oliver. MC, does Jamie has biscotti recipe? Don't remember coming across one).

Anyways, I thought this is quite a believable recipe and don't seem to be that complicated. Actually, compared with my confirmed recipe, this seems less troublesome since no electric mixer is required. And so I thought wrong... this recipe required kneading the dough and it was a very though dough! Didn't expect that type of consistency.

There was also one tricky instruction - the ingredient list says 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk. The method says "... add almond, and the eggs....". EGGS? The 2 eggs, or the 2 eggs AND the yolk? At the end of the recipe, it says "brush the dough with egg yolk".

So I guess just the 2 eggs without the yolk. But after kneading for a while, I realize that some of the flour couldn't be mixed together, so I added the egg yolk as well, and brush the dough with another egg yolk before baking.

Whatever do we want to brush egg yolk? I actually don't like the outcome of the egg wash. It's rather erm... yellow. See...


I didn't think the biscotti looked "pretty" with the egg yolk wash even after slicing them. One thing about slicing biscotti - if you slice them when they are just baked, it's easy since the dough is still soft, but since it's soft, the biscotti will crumble. Leaving the biscotti for about 5 minutes makes slicing a bit more difficult but you will find that the biscuit slices are more intact.

Sliced biscotti ready for second bake. If you want really crispy slices, cut them as think as possible and bake for a longer time (the dryer the crispier), but I also discovered (and according to feedback) that it will be a bit hard. Something like crispy equals hard. MFG said he likes it crispy, but the parents finds it a bit hard. A baking time of 10 to 15 minutes maximum would be just nice for the second baking.

Biscuits look presentable, looks yummy enough and I'm sure would be great with dipping into coffee. I've reduced the sugar a lot since I've substitute half the almond with chocolate chips. Cousin sis said it's not sweet enough and a bit tasteless, plus she doesn't like almond nut, just for the sake of helping me food taste. Texture wise, she said just nice, crispy enough but not too hard.

MC said, she still like the previous non chocolate base version. But since this is a rather big batch, MC and BIL will be forced to take one jar each to work (and then after force their colleagues to try), a small portion for MFG my official guinea pig. And if successful, Carebear to try since she has coffee as her default drinks daily.