Almond Biscotti

Italian-style biscotti, great for dipping in coffee or tea. These biscotti are true to their name; they are cooked twice to ensure they become very crispy. They do take a long time to bake, but they require very little effort to do. You can do variations of this recipe by adding a chocolate drizzle. The recipe calls for roughly chopped almonds, however I did not have any at hand so I skipped those. I also halved my biscotti to have smaller ones.

Ingredients:
Makes about 12 long biscotti

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
3 large eggs
2 tbsp Amaretto (or 2 tbsp rum with 1 tsp almond extract)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp anise extract (optional)
1 cup whole almonds, toasted and chopped very roughly

Directions:
Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine dry ingredients and set aside. Whisk the eggs, amaretto, vanilla and anise extracts in the mixer until well blended. Add the dry ingredients and mix until combined. The dough should be thick and sticky at this point, do not add more flour!

Scrape the dough out onto a parchment lined sheet pan. Flour your hands and shape into a long flat loaf, about 10 inches long and 5 inches wide. There is no need to be perfect, just try to get it into the general shape.

Bake into the pre-heated oven until firm and dry, about 50 minutes. Take out of the oven and use a long serrated knife to slice it into 1/2 inch wide slices. Lay the slices cut side down on the baking sheet and bake another 20 minutes. Turn the slices over and bake 20 minutes more, or until the biscotti are a light golden brown.

Cool the biscotti on a rack, making sure to cool them completely before storing.