Once Were Biscotti

hey-ho sugar lovers.

This month's Cookie Carnival extravaganza, brought to you by the good people at The Clean Plate Club, is Chocolate and Hazelnut Biscotti. Could three words in the English language be more seductive (OK, one of the words is Italian, but you know what I mean).

I baked up a bunch of these with glee and wonder. They were fabbo. Here's how I did it:

Chocolate and Hazelnut Biscotti

ingredients
1 1/2 cups hazelnuts, toasted and skinned
3 cups plain flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tspn baking powder
1 tspn baking soda
1/2 tspn salt
250gm unsalted butter, room temp
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 tspns vanilla essence
1/2 tspn almond essence
1 cup choc chips

method
heat oven to 180 degrees celcius and line large, heavy baking sheet with parchment paper

grind 1/2 cup hazelnuts and set aside

beat butter and sugar til creamy. add eggs and essences and beat until well combined

whisk four, cocoa, baking powder and soda and salt together in another bowl and then add to the wet ingredients, and beat in well

gently mix through both lots of nuts and choc chips

mould into two logs and back 12cm apart (they will spread a lot in the oven) and bake 35 mins

remove and cool for 15 minutes, but leave the oven on

slice into 1.5cm thick biscuits, lie flat on baking tray and bake for another 15 minutes

Now, there are two major problems with this recipe. Firsly the dough is so seriously delicious that you may be forced to eat it all before it even makes it into the oven.

Secondly, it made a lot of biscotti. I gave some to BBITW for her birthday. Took some others for a farewell morning tea at work. Oh look - visitors - well I have some for them. Before you knew it, I was all out. And now this is the only photo I have for you:

oh my god, they worked!

YES! FINALLY

I managed to make biscuits that actually worked. hurrah hurrah hurrah.

and i almost didn't make the deadline this month. the days were ticking away, and I'm supposed to be going away this weekend and I thought all was lost.

Of course, there's a story.....

this morning i had a fantastic breakfast at a new place in the city. Well - Pranzo's not new, I've just never been there before so it was new to me. for an upcoming work celebration staff were invited to suggest a venue and a time. Having recently been introduced to this menu by other means i suggested a staff breakfast there. everyone thought i was joking when i mentioned black pudding bruschetta and apple risotto.

Philistines.

needless to say my nomination was not successful (it'll be pies and pasties in the boardroom. how imaginative), so i went to pranzo for breakfast with a current colleague, the opera singer, and a former employee, housing girl. both firm food fans with a little bit a class.

i had the pudding (i LOVE black pudding), opera boy had the risotto and housing girl the poached pears with ricotta. all were a hit. the pudding was soft, as the Europeans do it, and the eggs perfectly poached with just a peppery hint of chili.

anyway, all was in fine form. opera boy is regularly hilarious (i have been known to cry and pee simultaneously when he's on a roll) and we hadn't seen housing girl for a while. so the three of us snorted and chuckled through breakfast before heading off to the office.

about an hour later opera boy mentioned that my voice had become decidedly sexier. twenty minutes after that it had gone completely and i was sent home.

after five hours sleep (oh yeah, sounds good, but how on earth will i nod off tonight???) i was at a loose end. having all the required ingredients in the house i set about baking. Here's a recipe:

Snickerdoodles (thanks to Kate at the Clean Plate Club. She rocks)

Ingredients

• 240gm butter
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 2 large eggs
• 2 3/4 cups plain flour
• 2 tspns cream of tartar
• 1 tspn baking soda
• 1/4 tspn salt
• 2 tblspn ground cinnamon mixed with 1/4 cup sugar

method
1. preheat oven to 180 degrees
2. cream butter and sugar until creamy and then combine eggs
3. sift in dry ingredients
4. roll into small balls in the palm of your hand and then roll them in the cinnamon sugar
5. bake 5cm apart on a lined tray for 10 minutes, turning once
6. when ready they should have spread and cracked down the centre. they should not brown.

sounds easy.

and for once it was. they took about 10 minutes to get together, and about that long again to cook.

I've learnt that they're much nicer once they've cooled and hardened (I'm useless at resisting hot food). The only thing I changed from the recipe (and it's minor change) is that my sugar had a vanilla bean in the jar, which was lovely for me as vanilla is one of my favourite flavours.

I'm just so pleased that after a long, long list of failures I've finally be able to complete a cookie carnival challenge successfully. actually, all this typing has made me tired. maybe i can go back to bed. it's nearly 6 after all.........

oh yes, a PS: Good luck to Turkey in the Euro 2008 Finals! They're playing Germany - they'll need it!

why am i so bad at this?

i'm quite sure that kate is going to cast me out of the cookie carnival gang. two out of my three challenges have been awful, awful failures. this month it was blueberry drop biscuits. i love berries. any type of berries.

here is the story:

ingredients
1/2 cup copha
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/2 tspn almond extract
1 1/2 tspn grated lemon zest
2 c plain flour
2 tspn baking powder
pinch salt
1 cup blueberries

method
cream the shortening, sugar, egg, milk, extract and zest in a large bowl. Slowly add the flour, baking powder and salt. fold in the blueberries and mix until well blended.

cover and chill for 4 hours.

Drop dough by teaspoonfuls, 1 1/2 inches apart on a greased tray. bake 12-15 mins. cool slightly before moving to wire rack.

now, this is a picture of my batter:


looks totally yummo. wish i had taken a photo of them on the tray ready to go in, because they looked beautiful then too. but in the oven they lost all their shape and i ended up with more of a slice, one tray of which i burnt because i was watching bloody spicks and specs at the time and myf's team were almost winning (i like it when myf's team wins). i was supposed to be taking these for the cancer council's biggest morning tea tomorrow, but i will have to stop at the shops now. how embarrassment!!

i have two excuses. firstly i have the worst cold in the world and thinking really, really hurts. secondly maybe copha in australia is different to vegetable shorting in america (which was what was in the recipe kate sent us). i plead ignorance and illness (and chronic stupidity)

soon i will cook something that works. i promise. please let me play with you kate, please!

cookie carnival, april

my last attempt at a cookie carnival challenge was pretty dismal!

this month kate, from the clean plate club issued us with vanilla bean thins:

ingredients
1 vanilla pod, split and steeped in 3/4 cup icing sugar for at least 24 hours (i left mine a week)
1 3/4 cups plain flour
1/2 tspn salt
1/2s tspn baking powder
1 stick plus 5 tblspn butter (or 200g if you go metric!)
1 large egg yolk

method
remove the vanilla bean and place sugar in a food processor with the flour, salt and baking powder and combine. add butter and pulse until it forms small lumps. add the yolk and pulse until it forms a firm dough. divide into two balls, flatted to 12cm discs, wrap in plastic and chill for an hour

(aside: i don't' have a food processor. mostly i'm a hard core yia yia and i just make cakes, bread etc on the bench top. i did use a bowl for this. it's a very crumbly, buttery mix)

Roll out the first disk on a lightly floured surface. cut out shapes and re-chill scraps to use again. repeat with the second ball of dough. only collect and re-use scraps once.

(aside: my dough was waaaaayyy to crumbly to roll out. maybe i mis-calculated the butter conversions. it's ok, my cookie cutters are all really boring. what i did do was break off pieces, roll then into a ball and flatten them out in the palm of my hand. i know i'd just chilled it, but once the butter warmed up a bit this was much easier).

place 2cm apart on a lined baking tray and back at 180 degrees until golden brown (about 15 minutes). transfer to a rack to cool. if your rack is busy, use the iron maiden.

these biscuits look much less freaky than my last ones. they almost look like they're supposed to i think. as for taste? well, they taste basically like butter short bread. they're nice. i had some at work with my 11 o'clock cup of tea. but they're not great. if i were forking out the $4.50 for the vanilla pod again, i'd probably be making pana cotta (mmmmmm... pana cotta). but i couldn't really taste it properly in these.

but my biscuit baking is definitely getting better! roll on may. by december i'll have this game licked!!!

don't mock me!

this month i decided to join kate at the clean plate club, for the cookie carnival. in australia we don't have cookies, we have biscuits (JC the chocolate queen will argue this one black and blue with me however), so this is my biscuit entry for this month.

i would like to start by saying that the results of this baking enterprise are in no way a reflection of kate, the clean plate club or cookie carnival (or biscuit bivouac - i'll come up with a better name), in any way, shape or form. the results can rest only with me.

it was a total and utter failure.

but let's start with the recipe. raspberry swirl biscuits (makes approx 2 doz)

ingredients
2 cups self raising flour
1tspn baking powder
1/4 tspn salt
125g butter, room temp
1 cup caster sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup raspberry jam
1/2 coconut flakes
1/4 cup toasted walnuts

• beat the butter and sugar together until creamy
• beat in the egg and vanilla
• sift in the flour, salt and baking power and beat until moist clumps form
• gather the dough into a ball on the bench top. flatten and shape into a rectangle
• wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour (or overnight if you like)
• remove from fridge and roll out on a lightly floured surface.
• mix jam and coconut together and spread over dough
• roughly chop the walnuts and sprinkle over the top
• roll dough up along the long edge, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for another 30 minutes
• unwrap the log, discard the ends and cut the remaining dough into 2cm rounds
• place cut sides down, 3cm apart on trays covered with baking paper
• bake for approx 20 minutes at 180 degrees, or until golden on the bottom

yes, sounds so easy doesn't it. that's what i thought too.

i'm not sure if my dough was too cold, or too warm, or do dry or too sodding something, but it all crumbled and broke apart. i didn't so much roll it up as fold it over. i must say they taste much better than they look.

you know that bit in elephant man, when he says "i am not an animal.." they look a bit like that.

the photo doesn't help. it's too late, i'm too tired and it's still too bloody hot here for me to muck about with lighting so they look very dried out (as an aside i'd like you all to note the article about the heat i've linked to is from thursday. today is saturday).

on a cheerier note, i also made some cupcakes tonight. i don't have the right ingredients for the icing, so i'll let you know about that, and sunday's round dinner party tomorrow. that's right. round dinner party