Engineer's Biscotti

Unashamedly stolen and adapted from www.cookingforengineers.com - this is the Almond and Orange Biscotti recipe.

• 200g sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 80g slivered almonds
• 2 tbs orange zest (zest of half an orange)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 250g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp almond extract

Sift and mix flour, baking powder and salt; put to one side. Mix sugar and eggs, and beat until pale (take a couple of minutes with an electric hand mixer). Stir in the extracts and almonds, then gently fold in the flour mixture with a spatula.

Set the oven to 190C/375F, and prepare a baking sheet with a baking mat (the teflon, rather than silicon kind, seem to work best for this). Divide the dough into two, and make two long thin shapes on the mat with them. The loaves will flatten and spread as they bake, so be careful to keep enough separation between the two. As the dough is very sticky, use the spatula to shape them.

Bake for 40 minutes. The tops should be starting to show small cracks, and the loaves will still be relatively soft inside, although crisp/hard on the outside. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a short time - about ten minutes. Cut, on the bias, into 1 cm slices. Arrange back on the baking sheet (the baking mat is no longer required) - either one side down, or stand on edge. If on a side, bake for 8 minutes, turn then bake for another 7 minutes. Cool on a wire rack, well separated.

Variations: I actually prefer these if I skip the almonds and use pistachios; the orange zest is then optional, but keep the almond extract. You can dip them in melted chocolate, but I don’t much care for this. Hazelnuts should work, although I haven’t tried these. Add 2 tbs anise seeds (or some anise extract, if you can find it), instead of the orange. Whole, unskinned almonds might be interesting to try.

You could use SR flour instead of the flour, baking powder and salt (there is slightly less baking powder in the recipe than there would be in SR flour).