There is something about eating a biscotti that is so evocative, transporting you to a sun drenched Italian piazza where cups of infeasibly strong espresso are served by broodingly handsome waiters.
Or maybe my imagination is just running away with me. I think maybe I need a holiday.
I am still three months away from what I am tentatively titling 'the summer of fun' (although I think it needs a better name) when I have just 13 days of work from the start of July to mid-September. It's going to be pretty tough.
The next best thing to being on holiday, however, is planning on holiday and nothing makes me happier than creating a colour-coded spreadsheet to enable us to organise our fun in the way that only two accountants can.
During a planning session the other weekend, I decided we needed some sustenance in the form of a crisp little biscuit that would be perfect for dunking in our tea.
I always thought that biscotti would be complicated with the whole double-baking palaver but these are really the simplest of biscotti. Although it is more traditional to include nuts, the rather bare state of my pantry dictated that these were replaced with chocolate chips. Not, of course, that it is much of a hardship to replace anything with chocolate chips.
Contrary to some popular opinion, using spelt flour does not make these gluten free although spelt flour does contain less gluten than regular flour. More importantly, however, it has (what I consider to be) a nicer taste than regular flour and imparts a much greater depth of flavour. Because it is more fragile than regular flour though, you do have to be careful not to overwork it otherwise the mixture can become rather dry and crumbly. This makes quite a small batch but the recipe can be scaled up or down as you see fit. I like the kick of spices in there but, again, it's a pretty flexible recipe so feel free to substitute whatever you prefer.
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Chocolate chip spelt biscotti Yield: Approx 12 cookies
Ingredients
- 115g (just under 1 1/3 cup) whole wheat spelt flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 90g (1/2 cup) dark brown soft sugar
- 1 large egg, beaten
- 75g (1/2 cup) chocolate chips
Cooking Directions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F and line a baking sheet with non-stick paper or a silicon mat.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, spices and sugar. Add the beaten egg and bring together the dough with your hands until it is smooth. Finally add the chocolate chips and work them into the dough until all the ingredients are incorporated.
- Roll the dough into a a sausage about 5cm/2 inches wide and place on the baking tray.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes until the dough feels firm to the touch.
- Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes. Turn the oven down to 140C/275F.
- When the log of dough has cooled, slice it on the diagonal using a bread knife. You want your biscotti to be about 1cm/just under half an inch think ideally.
- Place the biscotti bake on a baking tray and bake for 10 minutes. Flip the biscotti over and bake on the other side for 10 minutes until firm.
- Transfer to a wire rack to cool.