Boot scootin'. As in, scoot your boot back to the kitchen to have another, and another, and likely yet another, of these really yummy, pretty, marbled biscotti.
Remember a few posts back, in our Bella Biscotti post for cranberry and chocolate chip biscotti, we said to stay tuned while we perfected our method?
Well, bake baby bake!
This recipe from Eating Well circa early 1990s (before they came off the shelves and then came back to life), has to be our all time favorite biscotti. And then we veganized it. And it is still our all time favorite biscotti. Vegan biscotti. Who knew egg-free biscotti could have the right mouth feel, texture, and crunchiness? We did, and now you do, too!
As always, we've offered up the recipe exactly the way it was originally written, and we've noted our modifications where necessary. If your food allergy situation doesn't match up with ours, feel free to alter the recipe to suit your dietary needs/preferences.
As written by Eating Well, the recipe is pretty much fool proof. But with the modifications we have to make so these are safe to eat, well, let's just say it helps to have some idea what the dough is supposed to look like. If it won't send anyone in your household into anaphylactic shock, you might want to make up a batch of these as written, scrub and sanitize your kitchen, and bring the biscotti to work, game night, whatever you have to do to keep the offending cookies out of the wrong mouth. If that's problematic or just too much trouble for you (as it would be for us), give it a shot as we've modified it, take notes, and make additional changes to your recipe in the future. We don't mean to make it complicated, we just really want you to enjoy these.
Oh, one more thing. Our kids aren't into mocha, so we omitted the coffee. But it gives these biscotti their biscottiness, so if you can, leave it in.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup whole unblanched almonds (we omitted these)
- 2 cups all-purpose white flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 large eggs (we omitted these)
- 2 large egg whites (and we omitted these too - all of the eggs in the original recipe were replaced with: 1/2 cup whizzed up tofu - the shelf stable kind in the box, 1/4 cup drained applesauce, 1 egg-worth of Ener-G egg replacer, plus 2 to 3 teaspoons of canola oil to replace some of the fat in the whole eggs)
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons instant coffee powder (we omit this)
- 4 teaspoons water
- 1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, melted (or make your own from cocoa powder and oil)
- 1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract (we replaced this with an additional 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract)
Method
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Spread almonds on a baking sheet and bake for 12 to 14 minutes, or until lightly toasted. Set aside.
- Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- Whisk together eggs, egg whites (or alternatives) and vanilla, and add to the dry ingredients; mix just until smooth.
- In a small bowl, combine cocoa, instant coffee and 4 teaspoons water.
- Divide the dough in half. To one half, add the cocoa mixture and melted chocolate. Mix just until incorporated.
- To the other half, stir in almond extract and almonds. (If you're using the almonds, you probably want to cut them up a bit first.) Assuming you're not using the almonds, do what we did and replace the almond extract with a little more vanilla extract, so you get the right consistency.
**We're going to continue with the original recipe as written, but have a look at our notes at the bottom to see how we make this next part easier.**
- *Place half of the almond dough on a well-floured work surface. Pat into a 4-by-8-inch rectangle. Top with half of the chocolate dough. roll up into a cylinder, then roll the cylinder back and forth to forma 14-inch long, 1 1/2 inches thick. Repeat with the remaining doughs. Place the logs on a prepared baking sheet.*
- Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until firm to the touch.
- Transfer logs to a rack to cool. Reduce the oven temperature to 300 F.
- cut the logs diagonally into 1/2-inch thick slices. Stand the slices upright on the baking sheet and bake for 40 minutes. Let cool before storing.
Makes about 4 dozen biscotti.
Notes
We don't go through the patting rolling thing. Here's what we do instead:
- Position a non-stick sprayed baking sheet on your counter so it is wider than it is tall, when you're looking at it.
- Put half of the almond dough on one half of the baking sheet, and the other half on the other half. The dough is going to spread just a bit, so don't put the two logs so close together that they may end up touching.
- Use a spatula to make a long, thin, relatively flat (maybe 1 1/2 to 2 inch thick) log out of it.
- Put half of the chocolate dough on top of one of the logs, and the other half on the other log.
- Use your spatula to mildly marble the dough. Do your best, it'll be okay no matter what.
At this point, get back on the recipe train and pop the baking sheet in the oven. See above to finish off the biscotti.
These are awesome on their own, dunked in a cup of coffee, or dipped in a glass of non-dairy beverage alternative.
