Pecan Biscotti

It been a while since I have posted on biscotti–I hope you have appreciated my restraint :).  But it seems like I never tire of sorting out a new twist on my favorite biscotti recipe and needing to use up a Christmas baking purchase of pecans……..well, how far away could a post on pecan biscotti be??  It continues to amaze me how much biscotti is to purchase, really, anywhere.  Even at one of our discount stores, a rather famous brand goes on sale for $2.50 for a box of hummmmm, maybe 8?  Yikes.  And at the coffee shop, or grocery bakery/store–one biscotti can set you back almost that much!  Let’s bring some sense to this treason.  Biscotti does take a bit of doing but it is certainly NOT in the class of say, pie crust or crescent rolls or even cookies–it’s hard to burn biscotti due to the absence of lots of fat and sugar and it’s cooked low and slow.  Here’s is a bit more “how-to-do-it” that, hopefully, will free you from the tyranny of overpriced, packaged biscotti.

Pecan Biscotti–the easy way

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and cut parchment to fit a large cookie sheet.

Beat for 3 minutes, or until thick and pale:

3 large eggs (I always warm them in a bowl of hot tap water, briefly–in their shells, of course)

1 cup sugar ( a bonus–add a vanilla bean to your sugar container and it becomes vanilla sugar–I use vanilla sugar for almost all my baking)

2 teaspoons vanilla

In your food processor:

1 cup pecans–whirl until finely chopped

Then add:

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or a little over 2 cups of white flour (you can guess I always use whole wheat)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Process a few seconds to mix.

You now have two mixtures–wet and dry.

Dump the flour mixture on top of the egg mixture and gently fold together with a spatula.

The dough looks wet and unmanageable; have faith.  It will work, I promise.

Now, use wet hands to shape three logs on your parchment lined cookie sheet.

Don’t be afraid.  You can re-wet your hands as needed to make neat logs.

Bake for 30 minutes at 325 degrees.

Let cool on a rack for 10 minutes.  Gently move the logs to a cutting board and cut diagonally into 3/4 inch pieces.  I know they don’t look that great but they improve in appearance with the next step.

Lay them on a cooling rack on a baking sheet and re-bake at 300 degrees for 15 minutes.   Turn the oven off; open the door and let them dry out further as they cool.  This step has made them foolproof–they are always nicely toasted and dry–ready for dunking in your favorite tea, coffee or milk if you are my teenage sons.

If you feel like chocolate shouldn’t be left out, you can dip or drizzle with melted chocolate chips.

~A