Chocolate Peanut Biscotti

Chocolate Peanut Biscotti
recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons instant espresso powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temp
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup chopped almonds, blanched or unblanched (used peanuts)
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped or 3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

1. Preheat over to 350F.
2. Line baking sheet with parchment.
3. Sift together flour, cocoa, espresso powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
4. With electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter and sugar until pale (~2 mins).
5. Add eggs and vanilla and beat for another 2 minutes.
6. With mixer on low speed, mix in the dry ingredients in 3 additions until dough forms.
7. Mix in the chopped nuts and chocolate. (Knead dough if any dry ingredients have escaped)
8. Divide dough in half. Roll each dough into 12 inch long logs. Flatten logs to 1/2 to 1 inch high and about 2 inches across. Lift dough onto baking sheet.
9. Sprinkle each log with a little sugar. Bake for 25 minutes until they are just slightly firm. (Note: it is ok if the log spread and crack)
10. Remove from oven and put on cooling rack for about 20 minutes.
11. With a long serrated knife, cut each log into slices between 1/2 and 3/4 inch thick. Stand slices up on baking sheet.
12. Preheat over back to 350F and bake the army of biscotti for another 10 minutes.
13. Cool& enjoy!


^ready for first bake

Thank you bestie for thinking of me when you went to the library! This might just be the first cookbook I actually read and baked something out of(: Since the cookbook was almost 2 inches thick of recipes, my bestie and I had ideas of just flipping to a random page and whatever we landed on, I would bake. It would only be nice if all the ingredients were at hand though. In the end, I decided to just skim through the whole cookbook (I was going to anyways). The recipe/ picture that caught my eyes was the Chocolate Biscotti, a Twice-Baked Cookie. Butter. Check. Chocolate. Check. Cocoa Powder. Check. Check. Check. Check. Yes! Here it goes.

Biscotti is actually pretty easy to whip up. Once you have all the ingredients, it takes at most 10 minutes to get the dough ready. The tedious part of the whole process was probably the cooling after the first bake (The biscotti is more prone to cracking if you don't wait for it to completely cool!). Gotta be patient! (;


^after first bake

**These biscotti would definitely be better if it was another combination of ingredients. I didn't like the peanut in it and the chocolate was too strong/sweet to my liking. The big peanut pieces also made it hard to cut thin slices for the second bake. (As I am posting this, I also made the Lenox Almond Biscotti from this cookbook, which I like a lot better. >>post coming soon)