Crunchy Factor!

My little sister was home over the weekend. So the day was like a blur of activities with early cooking, some shopping, and a lot of baking. Earlier this month, we already sent her a couple of jars filled with oatmeal crisps. Should have expected that there'll be a new request from her to bring back to college. 

Her request: 

something that's like a cookie but has a longer shelf-life. Only one thing that came to my mind. 

Biscotti. 

My little brother asked, pointing at the baked biscotti : What's this?

My dad : Biskut (biscuits) and roti (bread). *Fairly certain that the name was a combo of the two! Notice the bold words*

Me : No lah... *And I gave them a short lecture (hah!) of what biscotti is..* ^_^

A twice-baked, sliced cookies. Crunchier and sturdier than most cookies out there. Dunk-in-your-drink type of cookies. Don't try to attempt in eating the slices without dunking it it your drink first. This is the only warning I give you. Perhaps the easiest cookies I've ever baked too! The hardest part was waiting for it to finish baking. It sure took a long time to bake compared to others. Then, the second bake... *Hence the name!* Yeah, seriously a lot longer! 

Nick Malgieri's Biscotti Napoletani

This is quite a well known recipe for honey biscotti. It's all over the web! You can find it at Food, Recipe Binder, and also at Epicurus.

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
• 3/4 cup whole unblanched almonds, finely ground
• 3/4 cup whole unblanced almonds
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/3 cup water

1. Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F). Line and grease a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside. Combine all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl except for honey and water. Stir the dry ingredients well
2. Make a well in the center, add in honey and water. Mix until combine and you end up with fairly sticky dough
3. Wet palms with a bit of water, then divide the dough into two. Shape each into logs and place on baking sheet side by side with 2 inches room between them. Flatten the logs slightly with dampen fingers. The logs will rise while baking
4. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes. Take out from the oven and cool in the pan for 15 minutes (or until you can touch them without burning your fingers). Remove from pan and cut diagonally into slices, 1/2 inch thickness
5. Lay all of the slices with cut side down, back in the pan. Reduce oven temperature to 150 C (300 F) and bake for another 15 minutes until dry out. Let cool totally on wire rack afterward then store in an air-tight container. These keep well in the pantry!

P/s :

The taste was plenty sweet so your drink might as well be unsweetened to balance on the sweetness. Also, I made a variation by added in chocolate chips into the dough, replaced cinnamon with vanilla and peanuts instead of almonds. Not to forget, minus the sugar! We ALL loved it! Gotta made another batch soon. We ran out of these already! O_o