Biscotti
A lean, fat-free almond dough baked as logs, sliced warm and dried a second time until they snap rather than bend.
- Prep
- 20m
- Cook
- 55m
- Waiting
- 20m
- Total
- 1h 35m
- Serves
- 30 biscotti
- Effort
- Easy
Method
Tap a step number to mark it done. Tap an ingredient once for got it, twice for need it.
| 3 | Whisk the eggs and sugar, then work in the dry ingredients 6m | Bring to a stiff dough and shape into two flat logs 6m Wet hands make the sticky dough manageable. | Bake the two logs at 170°C / 340°F for 30 minutes 30m | Cool the logs 20 minutes, then cut 1 cm slices on a steep diagonal 25m Too hot and they crumble, stone cold and they shatter. Twenty minutes is the window. | Bake the slices again at 150°C / 300°F for 20 minutes a side 25m They firm up as they cool. Slight give straight from the oven is correct. | |
| 200 g | ||||||
| 300 g | ||||||
| 1 1/2 tsp | ||||||
| 1/2 tsp | ||||||
| 1 orange | ||||||
| 200 g | ||||||
| 50 g |
-
Whisk the eggs and sugar, then work in the dry ingredients
6m- eggs 3
- caster sugar 200 g
- plain flour 300 g
- baking powder 1 1/2 tsp
- fine salt 1/2 tsp
- orange zest 1 orange
-
Bring to a stiff dough and shape into two flat logs
6m- from 1 Whisk the eggs and sugar, then work in the dry ingredients
- whole almonds 200 g
- pistachios (optional) 50 g
Wet hands make the sticky dough manageable.
-
Bake the two logs at 170°C / 340°F for 30 minutes
30m- from 2 Bring to a stiff dough and shape into two flat logs
-
Cool the logs 20 minutes, then cut 1 cm slices on a steep diagonal
25m- from 3 Bake the two logs at 170°C / 340°F for 30 minutes
Too hot and they crumble, stone cold and they shatter. Twenty minutes is the window.
-
Bake the slices again at 150°C / 300°F for 20 minutes a side
25m- from 4 Cool the logs 20 minutes, then cut 1 cm slices on a steep diagonal
They firm up as they cool. Slight give straight from the oven is correct.
No fat, by design
Butter shortens a biscuit, coating flour proteins so they cannot form long gluten chains, and the result crumbles under your teeth. Biscotti leave the fat out entirely, so a modest gluten network does form and the dough bakes into something firm and cohesive. The second bake then drives off the remaining moisture, and the sugar dissolved in it recrystallises into a hard glassy matrix as it cools. That is what makes them snap, and what makes them keep for a month.
Notes
- Cut with a long serrated knife using a single sawing stroke. Pressing down fractures the log.
- Space the slices out on the second bake. Crowded, they steam each other soft.
- If they still bend when cool, give them another eight minutes at 150°C.