Hazelnut Fig Biscotti for Old Souls

My younger brother just turned twenty-two.  What do you give a strapping Italian male who acts like he’s eighty and desperately tries to subvert his birthday each year?  Why, you give him biscotti. 

Well, first you stalk him until he gives you his new address.  You say that he’s only making it harder on himself.  That he’s prolonging the inevitable.  That he might as well just give up, give out the goods, and get it over with. (And then you promise that you won’t mail anything too ridiculous.)

Sending something edible tends to be a good idea in a delicate scenario such as this one.  I have had these cookies on my “t0-make” list.  But I pictured a giant eye roll at the sight of a box of snickerdoodles.  So I settled in on biscotti.

And I’ll be honest.  I wasn’t sold on these guys when I first made them.  I had to bake them for so much longer than the recipe said, such a long time that I thought I sent the poor souls to an early grave.

But the next morning, I noticed an almost breakfast toast quality to them.  Like a piece buttered and scattered with cinnamon sugar.  With a little more of a snap. 

The toasted sugars from the second baking, once cooled, deepened the cookie and mellowed its spices. And, when dunked into a cup of coffee with a little cream, it offered about as much comfort as any cookie can.  So much so, that I made another batch this weekend.

This time, I just halved the hazelnuts and chopped the figs by hand, instead of blending some of the fruit and nuts in a food processor as the recipe originally suggested.  It resulted in a sliced cookie that was a little shaggier, a bit homier, but with a fig and hazelnut flavor that was more pronounced.  Either way, they promise a toasty gingersnap presence that will warm the souls of cranky old men.

So, little brother, I hope you didn’t give out a decoy address.  And if you did, I wish whoever is living in apartment 11C to be as old-souled as you are.  Make your birthdays be filled with biscotti for years and years to come.

XOXO

Hazelnut Fig Biscotti

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen by way of The Babbo Cookbook

Ingredients:

1 cup of whole hazelnuts

8 large Turkish (dried) figs, cut into small bite-sized pieces

¾ stick unsalted butter, softened

¼ cup granulated sugar, plus a few extra tbsp for dusting the dough

¼ cup plus 2 tbsp dark brown sugar, lightly packed

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

½ tsp almond extract

grated zest of a medium-sized orange

1¾ cup plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp baking soda

½ tsp kosher salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp grated nutmeg

¼ tsp ground cloves

3-4 cardamom pods, smashed, shelled removed, and seeds ground (a scant ¼ tsp ground)

dash of ground ginger

1 egg white

Instructions:

To prepare the hazelnuts

Before you do anything, you’ll want to remove the skins of the hazelnuts.  (I suppose you could leave them on, but a birthday is as good a reason as any to spend the extra time and skin them.)  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Place the hazelnuts on an ungreased cookie sheet and toast them until you can smell them and their skins start to crack.  Remove the skins by placing the hot nuts in a dish towel and rubbing them together.  You’ll get about eighty percent of the skins off and will have to spend a little time removing the rest (it’s okay if you can’t get the final few off, just leave them out). Then slice the hazelnuts in half.

To make the biscotti

In a bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy; add the eggs, one at a time.  Add in the extracts and grated zest and stir with a rubber spatula until well incorporated.

In a medium bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices.  Slowly beat the dry ingredients into the butter mixture, until the majority of the flour has been well incorporated.  Remove the bowl from the mixer stand and add in the fig pieces and sliced hazelnuts and stir until well combined (there should not be any flour still visible).  The dough will be fairly firm and will be heavily studded with nuts and fruit.  Wrap it in plastic wrap and chill it until firm (about an hour).

After about 45 minutes, preheat the oven to 325 degrees and grease a cookie sheet with butter.  Whip an egg white with a wire whisk until foamy. When the dough is ready, roll the dough out on a floured surface until it is roughly the length of your cookie sheet and about five inches wide (you can do this gently with your hands).  Place the dough log on your cookie sheet, brush it with the egg white (you’ll have some leftover), and then scatter generously with sugar.  Bake for 20-45 minutes (the recipe said 20, but it seems to need a bit longer: for me it was closer to 45 minutes).  Once the log turns golden brown, is firm to the touch, and starts to crack: it’s ready. 

Let it fully cool and then slice the biscotti on a bias into roughly ½ inch slices.  Lay the slices sideways on the cookie sheet and cook them at 250 degrees until they turn a deeper brown, crisp up, become completely dried out. (This took me about an hour.)  You’ll probably want to start checking after 30 minutes and turn the cookies over from time to time so that they brown evenly on both sides.  Allow them to cool fully, ideally overnight.

Makes 15-20 cookies

Notes:

-I’ve already eaten five six since last night (oops). Technically, they'll keep at least a week in a ziplock bag or airtight container.

-These guys are lovely super crisp, so be patient with the second baking.  Here is the recipe I used from Smitten Kitchen (with pictures).  And, if chocolate is more your speed, try these guys, courtesy of grandma.

New Traditions and Cacao Nib Chocolate Biscotti

Can I make a chocolate confession? I tend not to swoon over it. It can be a bit overdone: the red rose of desserts. And yet here I am, about to add another sin to my recipe box.

I promise you, these studded chocolate biscotti will have very few enemies at the table. Or wherever you chose to eat them. At whatever time of day. With whatever beverage of your choosing. That's the thing about a chocolate biscuit: it's pretty easy going, and it pairs as well with red wine as it does with your morning coffee.

Taza's chocolate covered cacao nibs in the recipe also add a little intrigue. The small pieces of cacao bean, which Taza describes as "light" and "fruity," are roasted and covered in chocolate. Made right here in Somerville, MA. This is a chocolate I can get behind.

Nibs aside, biscotti purists (are there such people?) may scoff at the butter in this recipe, as traditional biscotti is said to forgo it. Which begs the question: what does traditional really mean? I imagine butter might have been omitted because it was hard to come by, no? Is a recipe coming from an octogenarian Italian grandmother not tradition enough? We are talking cookies here-and we are lucky enough to have butter regularly available-let's not take ourselves too seriously, shall we?

It is worth noting that this recipe is from my grandmother, not only because she is a great cook, but because my grandfather-her husband-turned ninety on Sunday. Yes, ninety. And if you are looking for someone to swoon over sweets, he is your man. When I called on Sunday, my grandmother was preparing their traditional Sunday macaroni dinner with apple pie for my grandfather for dessert. "We eat pie instead of cake on our birthdays," she said, when I asked what they were having to celebrate.

Traditionally, it is thought that women adore chocolate and red roses. Conventionally, cake is consumed on your birthday. Apparently, my ninety year old grandfather prefers apple pie. So maybe the secret to long life is butter in the biscotti and pie on your birthday.

Or perhaps it's making your own traditions. To which I say, the hell with convention: leave the red rose, bring the chocolate biscotti.

Cacao Nib Chocolate Biscotti

2 cups all purpose flour, plus extra for dusting

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp kosher salt

6 tbsp butter, plus extra for greasing

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

3/4 cups chocolate covered cacao nibs (or chocolate morsels)

1 tbsp powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet with butter and then dust with flour, shaking off extra flour. In a bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl (or mixer bowl), beat butter and sugar until lightly fluffy; add eggs and continue to beat until well combined. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture until it forms a stiff dough; mix in walnuts and cacao nibs.

With floured hands, form dough into 2 logs (about 10 inches long and 2 inches wide) and place on greased cookie sheet; flatten logs slightly with your hand and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Bake about 35 minutes or until slightly firm to the touch. Cool logs on baking sheet for about 5-10 minutes. On a cutting board, cut biscotti diagonally and bake until crisp (about 10-20 minutes more). Let cool. They'll keep for at least a week.

Makes about 20

Notes:

-There is nothing like the sound of crisp homemade biscotti hitting your plate.

-This weekend Taza and local ice cream hero Batch will be pairing up to make ice cream sundaes at Taza's factory store in Somerville. Go and get your nib on.