Cashew Orange Biscotti

Biscotti (plural of Italian biscotto, roughly meaning "twice baked") are crisp Italian cookies often containing nuts or flavored with anise.

This recipe was inspired by Canadian Living magazine and my blogspot's buddy, Little Corner of Mine. By substituting butter for canola oil and using freshly squeezed orange. The different between my recipe and Little Corner of Mine's recipe is omitting orange essence and substituting pistachio for cashew nuts.

Due to the adding of orange juice, you can have this biscotti without dipping into your cup of coffee as the North Americans do or your glass of Port or Vin Santo (Vin Santo is the traditional dessert wine of Tuscany) as the Italians do.

This is my entry for MFM # 11. Beans and Nuts, hosted by Sulis. Thank you to Sulis for hosting this MFM, wikipedia and baking911.com for the information. Last but not least, thank you to Canadian Living magazine and Little Corner of Mine for giving me an idea so I can modify the recipe.

PS. In this recipe, I provided two systems of measurement, metric and US system


Category:
Baking
Style:
Italian

Biscotti

Ingredients:
Ingredients 1:
2 eggs
3/4 cup (150 g) sugar
1/4 cup (50 ml) freshly orange squeezed (If you want to use ready to use orange juice, I suggested to use Tropicana homestyle orange juice which contains pure orange juice with the pulp, no orange concentrate, no sugar added)===> omit this if you want to get harder yields
1 tbsp orange zest

Ingredients 2:
3 cups (375 g) unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups (about 7oz or 200 g) roasted cashew nuts, coarsely chopped

Egg Wash
1 egg white

Drizzle
8 squares semi-sweet chocolate

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C). Grease a biscotti pans.

2. In a medium bowl, mix and sift ingredients 2, excluding roasted cashew, then add roasted cashew in flour mixture.

3. Mix and beat ingredients 1 together. Add flour mixture in ingredients 1 mixture, stir with a rubber spatula or spoon until a stiff dough forms and knead by hand until mixture forms a smooth ball. Do not mix the dough with an electric mixer.

4. Roll the dough into a log about 30 cm or 12 inches long; place on the prepared biscotti pan. Press down, or roll with a rolling pin, until log is 13 5/8cm or 5 3/8 inches wide. Brush the top with egg wash.

5. Bake in the middle of the middle shelf for 25 to 30 minutes or until well risen and have also spread to about double their original size. The log is done when pressed with fingertip they feel firm or dry to the touch and appear LIGHTLY browned. Do not overbake biscotti as it continues to crisp as it cools.

6. Cool on a rack. With a serrated knife, cut into 2.5 cm or 1 inches slices, or cut into slices as thin as you desired.

7. Arrange the biscotti on the prepared pans, cut side down. It isn't necessary to leave space between them. If you need two oven racks, reset them in the upper and lower thirds. Bake the biscotti for about 15 or 20 minutes or until they are lightly toasted; don't over do it because if too brown, they become rock hard when cooled. Cool the biscotti in their pan on a rack

8. Melt the chocolate over a double boiler or in the microwave. Place cookie on cake rack set over a waxed paper lined rimmed baking sheet. Place tempered chocolate in a small plastic bag. Snip off the end with a small opening and squiggle chocolate over the cookie. Let chocolate set for about and hour or so.

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