Dried Cherry and Almond Biscotti
Sunday, January 4th, 2009
Biscotti is one of those cookies that can be hit or miss. I have nearly broken a tooth on dry, flavorless store-bought biscotti. I know you’re supposed to dunk them in coffee, but I believe a good biscotti should taste delightful even by itself. I’ve been tinkering with this recipe for years, starting with the original version for Chocolate-Dipped Cherry-Hazelnut Biscotti. The first time I made it, I thought the orange zest was overpowering, and dipping the biscotti in chocolate was messy and time consuming. However, I kept the recipe because I always ship some cookies at Christmas, and biscotti are very sturdy and keep for several weeks. Instead, I started tweaking the recipe a little bit each year. I dropped the orange zest and swapped out hazelnuts for almonds. I tried mixing in chocolate chips, which tasted good if inauthentic. This year I decided to simplify by ditching the chocolate altogether and enhancing the nuts with Amaretto. The resulting cookie has the rich almond flavor and crunchy (but not rock hard) texture that I’ve been looking for all this time. Read the rest of this entry �
