almond biscotti

Almond Biscotti

After a long summer (maybe longer) of eating whatever I wanted I am really trying to cut back.  Plus I’m trying to add consistent yoga back in to my life.  My living room is evolving into a mini yoga studio, which is a mini fulfillment of one of my life dreams!  Super exciting.

But as a result skipping dessert, I am craving it more and more.  Surely this will pass, but until it does, I might be posting recipes of all the desserts I”m dreaming of.

Here’s one I’ve been dreaming about having with my morning coffee sometime soon!

Homemade biscotti is so, so yummy.  I love it with loads of nuts and dipped in chocolate.

Almond Biscotti

Ingredients:

½ cup butter

¾  cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon almond extract

¾ cup almonds

2¼ cups flour

1½ teaspoons baking powder

Roast almonds for 10 minutes at 325 degrees.  Blend margarine and sugar.  Add eggs, vanilla and almond extracts.  Mix well.  Mix dry ingredients together (flour and baking powder).  Add to wet ingredients.  Fold in almonds.

Divide dough into halves and press each half into a loaf about 1 inch thick and 10 inches long on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake in top third of oven for 20-25 minutes.

Allow to cool for five minutes.  Slice diagonally and lay pieces flat on the cookie sheet.  (I always slice the loaves with an electric knife which makes the cutting fast and easy.) Return to oven for 5-10 minutes (depending on how hard you want the biscotti).  Flip the pieces and return to oven again for 5-10 minutes.

Cool completely.  Store in tightly covered container and serve with coffee or tea!

Chocolate variation:

Remove almonds and almond extract.  Add ¼ cup cocoa into the flour mixture and fold in 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of almonds.

Lemon variation:

Remove almonds and almond extract.  Add the juice and zest of one lemon to the dough when adding the vanilla.

Want more chocolate: Melt chocolate chips or baking chocolate (semi-sweet) on a plate in the microwave and dip the biscotti on one side.  Then set out and allow to dry.

Enjoy!