It's that time of year: time to think about the upcoming holidays, the New Year, and our 6th Annual open house. Taking a note from the ancient Incas, I thought "chocolate and chili.?

Hmm-m-m-m."

Almost nailed it first try! The chipotle heat shows up late on the back of the throat. One of those, "There can't be chili in this cookie!?" moments.

David G

Biscotti di Greve in Chianti

Carol Field is probably best known as the author of The Italian Baker. While it was first published in 1985, twelve years after Beard on Bread, it was certainly at the leading edge of the artisan bread movement in America. It is still frequently cited as the best book on Italian baking ever published in this country. I have never seen The Italian Baker, and my searches for it found it to be out of print with used copies selling for high prices. I'm delighted to have discovered, just yesterday, that it has been revised and is currently scheduled to be released in November, 2011. (The Italian Baker, Revised: The Classic Tastes of the Italian Countryside--Its Breads, Pizza, Focaccia, Cakes, Pastries, and Cookies)

Carol Field has written several other cook books, an Italian travel book and a novel. I checked out her book, Italy in Small Bites, from the library this week. It is a book of Italian between meal snack foods, although many are considerably more substantial in both calories and nutritional value than what we think of as “snacks” in the US. Field's writing about the place of these foods in Italian culture is quite fascinating for anyone interested in food and culture. (DaisyA! If you haven't read this book, you must!) But, no more about that now.

I had the afternoon off and looked for something from Italy in Small Bites I could bake before dinnertime. I chose “Biscotti di Greve in Chianti.” I've never met a biscotto I didn't like, but my wife has a dislike of anise flavored cookies, so the type of biscotti with which I was most familiar was out. These biscotti, which Field had from a bakery in Greve are flavored with almonds, vanilla and orange zest, all of which we like. The recipe was also attractive in that it is mixed in a food processor and seemed quick and easy.

Biscotti di Greve in Chianti

Ingredients

2 cups (280 g) unbleached AP flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp baking soda

Pinch salt

2 eggs, room temperature

1 egg yolk, room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp grated orange zest

1 ½ cups dry roasted almonds

1 egg, beaten with 1 tsp water for glaze

Procedure

1. Measure the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt into the bowl of a food processor with the metal blade and pulse to mix thoroughly.

2. Mix the eggs, egg yolk, vanilla extract and orange zest in a two cup measuring cup.

3. With the processor running, pour the liquids over the dry ingredients through the feed tube. Mix to a shaggy mass, not until a ball forms.

4. Pour half the almonds into the ball and pulse a few times. Repeat with the rest of the almonds.

5. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured board and press it into a coherent mass. (This is the hardest step. I used my hands and a bench knife to fold the dough, which started out as discrete granules of dough mixed with nut fragments, into something that stuck together after folding and pressing repeatedly.)

6. Preheat the oven to 325ºF.

7. Divide the dough into 2 or 3 parts and form each into a log, 2 inches across. Brush each log with the glaze. Place the logs, at least 3 inches apart, on a buttered and floured sheet pan or on sheet pan lined with parchment.

8. Bake 25-30 minutes until light golden brown.

9. Remove from the oven to cool, but leave the oven on.

10. Once the logs are cool enough to handle, slice each at an angle into ¾ inch thick cookies, using a serrated knife, and lay them on a lightly buttered cookie sheet.

11. Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes on each side until golden.

12. Cool (and dry) before eating (If you can. I found that snacking on the log ends during the second baking assisted with this step.)

    
    

    
    

These biscotti are very tasty. They are less sweet than most, with a nice almond flavor. The orange flavor is very subtle. I haven't tasted them yet dipped in cappuccino or in wine, but I think that's how to enjoy them best.

David

I added  cranberries to a biscotti recipe of my grandmothers making it part of our Thanksgiving dessert selection. We always add a little of our Italian heritage to each course of our dinner. Being in the middle of all the cranberry bogs on Cape Cod made it even more special this year.

http://turosdolci.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/cranberry-orange-biscotti-for-thanksgiving/

I get a lot of books from publisher, most of which I don't post about, but I received one today that I really like. 

Biscotti: Recipes from the Kitchen of The American Academy in Rome, The Rome Sustainable Food Project comes out in a week or so.  It is a little book but contains a really nice selection of cookie, biscotti, and meringhe recipes.  There are a nice range of recipes, everything from basic sugar cookies to fava bean cookies, and while a few require ingredients that I don't keep around the house (fava beans, pine nuts), none of them that I've looked at strike me as terribly complex or inaccessible.

What else.  The photography and typography are nice, the paper feels nice, it is just... a really lovely little book, one that feels more expensive than the thirteen bucks you can pick it up for right now. It'd make a nice, inexpensive gift for anyone you know who likes to cook and bake but hasn't yet caught the bread bug. 

I've not baked any of the recipes from it yet, but I shall soon.

It is natural to consider that Ricotta and almonds would be married together into a delicious soft biscotti flavored with almond oil. Almond ricotta biscotti are delicate cookies but with an intense aroma. We always include it on a “Torta di Biscotto di Nozze” because they are so perfect for a biscotti wedding cake.  It is the almond oil that gives these cookies that lovely warm almond flavor.

http://turosdolci.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/almond-ricotta-biscotti/

Why not try something different for Valentines Day and give your love ones a real double chocolate treat. These biscotti are perfect and wrapped in a pretty red box with ribbons would be a real surprise when opened. 

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I followed one of the recipes on here ( http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/13979/king-biscotti-almond-biscotti-%E2%80%9Ccantucci%E2%80%9D ), and it turned out yummy! It was one of the recipes that I had all the ingredients for here at home. As for the almonds, I had a bag if Smokehouse Almonds that I rinsed the seasoning off of, before putting in the oven to roast. (Thanks to Turosdolci for the recipe!)

The one difference in outcome was that mine was a bit darker on the inside due to having added a bit more cinnamon since my cinnamon container is several *cough-cough* years old.

As for what to do with all this, I'll probably pack them up for my husband to take to work tomorrow. They are delicious!

In the past three days we've been baking: a first try at Vollkornbrot, three loaves of sourdough, and 38 dozens of cookies including Welsh Cakes, Date-Nut Pinwheels, Tart Cherry and Pecan Biscotti, and Tangerine Spritz. Except for the spritz, I creamed all the butter and sugar by hand, before adding the rest of the liquid ingredients. Result: wielding the wooden spoon I got a blister on my little finger! Geez! do I have to wear work gloves to mix dough too?

These are left for us, and the neighhood cookie exchange. Seven packages left home yesterday posted to family.

The vollkornbrot

This is Hamelman's formula in Bread. I don't have a local nor online source for rye chops, so I ran rye berries through my homebrewing grain mill that cracks the seed coating on whole barley grains. I think the result was essentially the same as commercial rye chops. I'm happy with the flavor, and density but not elated. I tested it after resting it for forty-eight hours. I'm going to let it rest for three or four more days before I freeze it to see if the flavor develops further. The tea towel was a gift from an English friend of mine, and was the only tea towel I own big enough to wrap a Pullman loaf.

I didn't photograph the sourdough loaves, because one was immediately eaten, one immediately given away, and the third one immediately frozen. They looked like all my other posted sourdough boules'. However internally they're a bit different. I've named these Halcyon Acres Sourdough, after our modest five acres of horse pastures we call home. I concocted the formula, and my wife likes it more than any other sourdoughs I've baked to date.

I recently started feeding my sourdough starters with first clear flour, instead of bread flour. Additionally, when I want to increase dough sourness, I feed a small portion of starter for three days at room temperature, 72°F to 76°F, every eight to twelve hours. (I discard much of it each feeding--1:1:1 ratio--so thing don't get out of hand.) I'm indebted to Debra Wink for debunking the folklore that lactobacteria reproduce better in stiff cultures, at low temperature. The myth flew in the face of my understanding of physics and thermodynamics, but I'm not a microbiologist, so I wasn't entirely certain the myth was nonsense. I've started feeding with first clear flour because of its relatively high ash producing content, which provides necessary minerals and trace nutrients to the bacteria.

Here's the fromula for three 1.5 lb loaves of Halcyon Acres Sourdough

Ripe Sourdough Starter     450g

Starter Hydration              125%

Whole Rye Flour                225g

All Purpose Flour               450g

Bread Flour                       450g

Water                               650g

Salt                                  27g (2%)

Final Dough Weight           2252g

Hydration                         68%

I built my formula-ready starter using a culture previously rejuvanated with first clear flour, at room temperature, for 72 hours. The culture had subsequently been refrigerated for two weeks. I use a 24 hour, three build, method to create the needed formula-ready ripe starter. My three build method is described elsewhere in this blog, in detail. I used first clear flour for each build for this starter.

Procedures: Hand mixed flour, water, and starter to shaggy consistency; 30 minute autolyse; added salt; hand mixed to smooth, homogeneous consistency. Bulk proofed for 3 hours with 3 stretch-and-fold at 45 minute intervals; turned out; divided into three equal portions; preshaped boules; rested 10 minutes;final shaped. Final proof 1-1/2 hours in bannetons; scored loaves. Pre-steamed oven (I use water-soaked towel on a baking sheet) five minutes before loading. Baking: Initial oven temperature 480°F; reduced oven temperature to 450°F at loading. Removed steam source after 15 minutes; finished baking (approximately 10 minutes.)

Happy Holiday baking; watch out for blisters ;-)

David G

I decided to take fruitcake biscotti to work this week for a cookie exchange.

 Follow the link if you want to see the recipe. http://wp.me/pwL3l-5W

A Christmas double chocolate biscotti takes center stage on our Christmas biscotti tray. It is an old family recipe that is made only for holidays and special events. I could not imagine Christmas with out pizzette, it would be a very sad family gathering. The only problem is stopping everyone from eating them before our family dinner of speghetti with anchovy sauce and mixed fried fish.

Pizzetts are a double chocolate biscotti, scented with spices, roasted almonds, orange zest, coffee and chocolate chips. They are one of the biscotti attractions on our cookie trays for Christmas and every special event. You can make these cookies in advance and freeze them for up to 2 months unfrosted.

http://turosdolci.wordpress.com