Orange and chocolate. It’s a classic combination. But I have a confession: I have mixed feelings about it. I want to like it. I really do. I feel somehow stunted. Limited. Because I shy away from this combo. But honestly, I’m not a fan. I don’t hate it, I just don’t like it. So in an effort to broaden my horizons and give this combination another chance, I made orangey-chocolate chunk biscotti.
Tangent: I’m reading The Man Who Ate Everything
by Jeffrey Steingarten. In the introduction, he talks about how he made himself get over his food aversions so that he could eat anything as a food writer/critic. His secret? Repeated exposure to the offending food. Maybe there is hope for me and my orange-chocolate aversion. I did manage to get over most of my olive aversion by periodically forcing myself to eat an olive or two. Some of the stronger flavored olives still repel me slightly but I have found a number of olives that I love… and I don’t avoid foods on menus just because of olives in the description.
Remember the lime white-chocolate biscotti? I used a Dorie Greenspan recipe for Lenox biscotti. It’s made with cornmeal which adds an addictive crunch. This time I took the same recipe but added orange zest and dark chocolate instead of the lime zest and white chocolate chips. I really liked the orangey-ness of the batter. The combination of orange, vanilla, and butter was reminiscent of a creamsicle so I had great hopes for the finished biscotti. The final flourish was chopping up some dark chocolate from Trader Joe’s and mixing it into the dough just before baking.
The results were very pretty: speckles of orange and chunks of dark chocolate. But flavor-wise not my favorite biscotti (the chewy chocolate ones are still my favorite… chocolatey, salty, not too sweet, not too hard. Hmm. Maybe it’s time to make some more). I sent the biscotti to work with Dan where he and his coworkers enjoyed the orangey-chocolaty-crunchy biscotti. So I don’t think it was a failure in execution, just a failure to convert myself into an orange-chocolate lover. Maybe next time.
Tagged as:
biscotti,
chocolate,
orange
I was chatting with Dan the other day when out of the blue he asked, “Are you baking tonight?”. Talk about a loaded question, haha. I took this as an opportunity to point out that he is now officially spoiled. He went on to say that he was just asking because while he was having his afternoon coffee he was bummed that he didn’t have a “Patricia-baked-good” to go with it. Aw… sweet. But spoiled. He wasn’t craving anything specifically, just some kind of a fresh baked good. After an hour of pondering he decided he wanted “sausage bread”. Now, sausage bread (like this one from Bodacious Girl) is on my list of things to make someday. Just not today. And since it wasn’t an urgent sausage bread emergency, I didn’t feel bad telling Dan: ”no sausage bread for you“. (And just between you and me, I wasn’t sure I had the patience for yeast dough). But I did take his original request for a fresh baked good into consideration.
The next day I decided to make biscotti. But not the same chocolate biscotti as before. We both love that chocolate biscotti… chewy and sweet and salty and just good. But I wanted to try something new. So once again I turned to Dorie Greenspan and read the Lenox biscotti recipe in Baking: From My Home to Yours
. I read through the Playing Around section. Straight-up almond sounded okay, but I really wanted to do something different. I had a lime. Hmm. Lime… coconut? Doh, I didn’t have coconut. And then I spied an almost dead bag of white chocolate chips.
So I took the Lenox recipe and added lime zest, reduced the almonds, and added some white chocolate chips. The result was good. I feel like something in the flavor could be enhanced though. Maybe more lime zest? Or a different flavor extract than almond? Don’t get me wrong. These were good just as they were. And crunchy. Not hard, but crunchy. The addictive kind of crunchy. But I set out to make “lime” and got only a hint of lime. I do think coconut would be a nice compliment to the lime, maybe instead of the almonds. I’ll let you know if I try it again, but in the meantime these biscotti will make you happy when you are craving a little something to go with your afternoon coffee (or tea).
White chocolate “lime” biscotti (adapted from Lenox Almond Biscotti)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure almond extract
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
zest of 1 lime
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the cornmeal and whisk again.
3. Massage the lime zest into the sugar. Breathe deeply. Enjoy the aromatherapy.
4. In your mixer bowl, beat the butter and sugar together at medium speed until very smooth, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, scrape down the bowl, and continue to beat for about 2 minutes more. Beat in the extract.
5. Reduce the mixer speed to low and gradually add the dry ingredients but only until they are just mixed together.
6. Add the almonds and chocolate chips and stir it with your rubber spatula.
7. Put about half of the dough onto 1 side of the baking sheet. Shape it into a log about 12 inches long by 1 1/2 inches wide. Really it looks more flat and rectangular than log-like. Shape the rest of the dough into a 2nd log.
8. Bake 15-20 minutes, until lightly golden but still soft to the touch. Cool baking sheet on a rack for about 30 minutes.
9. (If you turned off the oven, now is a good time to turn it back on to 350). Move the logs to a cutting board and cut each into 3/4 inch thick slices. Return the slices to the baking sheet.
10. Bake for another 15-20 minutes (until golden and firm).
11. Cool on a rack to room temperature. Enjoy with your favorite tea or coffee.
Tagged as:
almonds,
biscotti,
lime,
white chocolate
Sometimes I am inspired to bake: I walk into the kitchen and without any real thought, I have something coming out of the oven, be it cupcakes, brownies or bread. Other times though, I need to bake but have no direction. I don’t mean that I need a sweet treat to eat. I mean, I need to bake something… work with flour, butter, sugar to create something. Do you have days like that?
On days when I feel that need but have no inspiration, I turn to experts like Dorie Greenspan. Baking: From My Home to Yours is such a thick and wonderful book filled, but there are so many recipes, it’s often difficult to find where to begin. I decided chocolate is always a good place to start. But I looked at brownies and thought “meh” (meh to brownies?! — I know, right?). I just wasn’t in the mood. I wanted to try something different. So I looked through the cookies and saw biscotti. But I don’t like biscotti. Of course, I have only had the rock hard biscotti you get at coffee shops which always leave me disappointed… unfulfilled even.
But instead of passing on the biscotti, I trusted Dorie and set aside my biscotti bias. I am so glad that I did. The results were like a brownie-cookie lovechild. I did have some difficulty with one of my biscotti logs falling apart. Well, it didn’t fall apart exactly so much as crumble profusely anytime I touched it. I think I took them out a little too early. I will bake them for the full 25 minutes next time (I can’t believe I’m actually a biscotti fan now).
A little bit chewy, not too sweet. D. loved them (he even liked them without coffee which is saying a lot).
Chocolate Biscotti
(adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons instant espresso powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup chopped almonds, blanched or unblanched
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
sugar, for dusting
1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Sift together all dry ingredients.
3. In the bowl of a mixer, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until pale (about 2 minutes). Add the eggs and vanilla and beat another 2 minutes.
4. Reduce the mixer to low and mix in the dry ingredients in 3 additions, mixing only until a dough forms. Mix in the chocolate and nuts.
5. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and knead in any dry ingredients that tried to escape.
6. Divide the dough in half. Roll each half into a 12-inch long log. Flatten both logs with the palm of your hand so that they are 1/2 to 1 inch high, about 2 inches across and sort of rectangular.
7. Carefully put both logs onto a baking sheet (preferably lined with parchment but seemed to be okay without). Sprinkle each log with a little sugar.
8. Bake the logs for about 25 minutes (Don’t take them out too early or you’ll get a crumbly mess like me). Remove the baking sheet from the oven and place on a cooling rack for about 20 minutes.
9. Using a long serrated knife, cut each log into slices between 1/2 and 3/4 inch thick. Put the slices back on the baking sheet and bake again… about 10 minutes this time.
10. Cool biscotti on a rack. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and enjoy…
Tagged as:
baking from my home to yours,
biscotti,
chocolate,
cookies
