welcome friends welcome back to the
kitchen it is december um unofficially
december is
cookie month so we're gonna bake some
cookies um and today i'm gonna do
biscotti or a
kind of biscotti or a take on biscotti
i'm going to do almond and orange and
biscotti are a cookie or biscuit that i
really enjoy but i don't make that often
and i looked back on the channel and
realized that i had never made one
so
into the mixer there is butter and sugar
and you want to cream those together
until they're nice and smooth and while
the butter and sugar is creaming
together i have here some flour and to
that i'm going to add salt
and baking powder
and we'll just give that a little bit of
a stir to bring it together a little bit
mix it together
you don't have to go overboard with this
step
just
that's good enough now
into the butter and sugar i'm going to
put two whole eggs
and one yolk i'm gonna hold back
the white for later
now for flavoring there's so many
different flavors that you could use i'm
going to put in almonds and orange zest
you can put in almonds and
almond extract you could instead of
putting in zest if you had orange
extract or lemon extract you could put
that in
lots of people like to put in
cranberries you could put in chocolate
chips there's so many different ways
that you could flavor them and
i would encourage you to sort of
step away from tradition
which would just be almond and almond
extract
and put in whatever you like and
experiment with it play with it try
different things don't be beholden
to what is supposed to be the original
or the only way that you can do
something
and i really like orange and almond
together
uh i think it's fantastic so that's what
i'm doing today
okay
got all the orange zested this is super
super smooth and you're looking for
something that is really nice and smooth
so
scrape down the sides because that's
always a good idea
and to that i'm going to add a little
bit of vanilla
and
the orange zest
so that goes in
and we turn that back on and mix it a
little bit more
at this point you've got a couple of
options you could ditch the mixer and
stir the flour in by hand
or you can scoop the flour in a little
bit of time into the mixer which is what
i usually do
i know that a lot of people are afraid
that they're going to over mix
up until this point you can't over mix
it
you should really
mix the sugar butter and eggs
past the point where you think you need
to mix them just keep mixing them
when you get to this point you can
overmix it
but if you just sort of scoop it in at
this rate and only mix it until it's uh
incorporated you're not going to over
mix it you'll be just fine
and it works a lot better if you're not
talking to the camera all the time and
running your mouth off so let me get
back to just mixing this in
okay now for the almonds and today i'm
using sliced almonds because that's what
i had in the cupboard
i've used sliced almonds slivered
almonds
whole almonds whole almonds with the
skins on roasted almonds candied almonds
i've used all of those things and i like
them all
equally they're all a little bit
different but all of them sort of bring
the same thing in fact i probably like
whole almonds with the skins on the most
because when you cut through it you get
a nice big piece of almond
but again what i had in the cupboard
were sliced almonds so that's what i'm
using
and that's about all the mixing we need
so on to shaping
now i'm going to break this dough into
four
equalish pieces so i'm gonna get it out
onto the counter top
and
let's see
one
two
did i say four i meant three
i don't know what i was thinking three
i'm gonna do three so i've got a piece
of parchment paper on
this
cookie sheet
and i'm just gonna shape this into
kind of a log
well not kind of a log i'm gonna shape
it into a log into three logs
and they're going to be
you know what don't knock yourself out
too much about the shape
it's important but it's not a deal
breaker
but you do want something that's sort of
low and squat i've seen recipes of this
size
um
done in just one giant log
i kind of like my biscotti a little bit
smaller so i'm going to do them a little
bit smaller now i've taken the egg white
that was left over from the initial
cookie
and i've added water and i've just sort
of mixed it up i'm going to brush that
on
just one of them you don't have to do
all of them and you don't have to do
this at all but since i've got the egg
white i'm just going to do a little bit
of an egg wash
and then i've got some coarse sugar here
and i'm going to give that a generous
sprinkle of coarse sugar
maybe just a little bit more
okay there we go
and into the oven for the first bake
now when these came out of the oven i
let them cool pretty much completely and
now we
slice them
into even thicknesses
and i've turned the oven down to
325 degrees
we want to bake them a second time but
the second baking is mostly about drying
them out a little bit
so
it doesn't need to be quite as hot
and letting them cool a little bit
before you cut them i find
means that i get a better cut i know
that some people have a really
good experience
cutting them right from hot out of the
oven
i've never had that so
put them back onto the baking tray and i
keep them standing up
with a little bit of space between them
pretty much fits all back on the same
tray so this is going to go back in the
oven at 3 25 for 12 to 15 minutes i'm
going to keep my eye on them i don't
want them to brown too much or get too
dry
hey girls hey glenn
hey friends
well you didn't need an invitation for
that no there's cookies i need a fork or
a spoon
those are orangy
but not overly orangey
to me it's just sort of a a background
hint lemons are default right so all i
could really do is for me
citrusy i like that
i like that that'll go well in a cup of
tea
and a cup of tea yeah yeah i know
exactly so
um they're fairly blonde they didn't get
a lot of browning i was very careful
with that i didn't want them to be
overcooked
on around the edges because sometimes
they get overcooked around the edges and
then they're tougher to eat
i wanted something that would crumble
and it sort of crumbles in your mouth
nicely
i'll have another one
and neither of us grabbed for the one
that has the um the sugar and the sugar
on top
so this is a basic
cookie
that you can play with the flavorings
like
all over the place with the flavorings
all kinds of different inclusions
all kinds of different um extracts or
peel or things that you can put in to
change the flavor a little bit
once you get the base cookie you can do
pretty much anything to it
i'm going in okay so thanks for stopping
by see you again soon
you