I can’t believe how close we are to the end of 2015! It makes me really happy to see Christmas decorations are already up in supermarkets and tell me, how many of you have started thinking of gift ideas?
I am a fan of edible gifts. For the most part, I find making edible gifts is easier than crafty type gifts.
As an avid coffee drinker, it is such a wonderful treat to accompany biscotti with coffee in the morning. Biscotti may sound fancy, it is in fact quite easy to make and does not require a lot of ingredients. Unlike my past biscotti recipe, this recipe produces a fairly sticky dough. And because of this, it has a positive effect on the texture of the biscotti! They did not turn out to be rock hard which I really love. This means you don’t even need to dunk it in coffee/tea if you don’t want to.
Recipe tweaked very slightly from allrecipes.com. Basically, I've omitted the vanilla and almond extract because I prefer the natural flavours from the eggs, cranberries & pistachio nuts.
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 3/4 cup white sugar (caster/fine sugar)
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries
- 1 1/2 cups pistachio nuts
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit/ 150 degrees Celsius.
- Line a cookie sheet with baking paper and side aside.
- In a large bowl, add flour, salt and baking powder and mix until well combined. Set aside.
- In a separate large mixing bowl, whisk olive oil and sugar until well combined.
- Using a whisk, gradually beat in the eggs (one egg at a time) into the oil-sugar mixture until smooth and velvety.
- Stir in the flour mixture using a flat spatula until well combined.
- Mix in pistachio nuts and cranberries by hand.
- Divide the dough in half. Form two logs on the prepared cookie sheet. Please don't be alarmed that the dough is very sticky (as shown on the video). Wet your hands to ease the handling of the sticky dough.
- Bake for 35 minutes or until the logs are light brown. Remove from the oven and allow it to cool for 10 minutes. In the meantime, reduce the heat to 275 degree Fahrenheit / 135 degrees Celsius.
- Cut logs into 3/4 inch thick slices. Lay on side on the baking paper lined cookie sheet. Bake for about 8 to 10 minutes or until dry.
- Allow the biscotti to cool completely before keeping them in an airtight container.
- To transform into edible gifts, transfer the biscotti into pretty boxes just before gifting.
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