Hello my gluten-intolerant friends.

I’m in Texas awaiting a visa to The Netherlands and while I’m here I’m determined to continue developing recipes despite my lack of equipment. I think this is good for us actually, as I tend to avoid recipes that feel too ‘basic’, however unfair the judgment. This way, I’m being forced to create things with equipment that may more closely align with what others have at home and are not as ingredient- and labour-intensive. I hope to take some of this energy into the future as well.

Today, we’re making biscotti. If you haven’t made biscotti before, we’re basically baking one big cookie until it’s just set, then removing and cutting it into strips, and then baking again until it’s dried out.

If you haven’t eaten biscotti before, you may be asking, ‘Why would I want a dry cookie?’. But I have a strong case for such a thing: the dryness of biscotti means you are invited to have it soak up any beverage of your choosing. I like it in the morning with filter coffee but it also pairs beautifully with a latte or cappuccino, a glass of milk, a strong black tea, or—as the Italians do it—after dinner with a glass of marsala. This is why the biscotto is so loooooong, so you can get it properly saturated while your fingers stay dry.

Seriously, don’t eat this without dunking it in something. It just ain’t right. I used to serve these at Edison Coffee Co. in Dallas, Texas and it would physically pain me to see people biting these between their molars without dipping. But if I may be a little self-congratulatory, these were a staff favourite at the café and my brother once took a bouquet of them home as a birthday gift for his wife. They’re that good.

Next week for The Chew Crew, I’ll be sharing my recipe for Tres Leches cake, a classic. I may even throw in a wintery variation for the HausMates, for those having a warm Christmas (like us, in Texas) and want some cold, festive cake.

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Overview

Beat the butter and sugar, add eggs and vanilla, add dries, then mix in chocolates. Chill the dough for 20 min, then toss the dough in some flour on the counter before transferring to a lined sheet tray and pressing into an even rectangle. Egg wash, sprinkle with demerara sugar, and freeze the dough (if you have space) for 20-30 minutes. In the meantime, preheat the oven. Bake for 25 minutes, let cool for 10 minutes, slice into strips, place back on the tray with gaps between, and bake for another 20 minutes until dry to the touch. Allow to cool completely, then optionally dust with icing sugar.

Recipe

Makes 10-12 biscotti, depending on desired thickness

Ingredients:

55g semisweet chocolate (50-60% cocoa content) chips or quality bar (Tip 1)
55g white chocolate chips or quality bar
113g unsalted butter, room temp
150g sugar
100g (about 2 medium) eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
210g GF flour blend (with xanthan gum, or add 4g [~1 tsp] xanthan gum if your blend doesn’t include any) [see notes for homemade blend]
35g milk powder
20g dutched cocoa powder
1g instant coffee (optional, to deepen the chocolate flavour)
8g (2 tsp) baking powder
1/2 tsp (3g) salt
For topping: 1 egg, beaten ; turbinado sugar ; icing (confectioners’) sugar

Method:

Line a baking sheet with parchment. Blitz both chocolates in processor if using bars, or chop by hand, until they’re the size of chips.
To make the dough: Beat the 113g butter and 150g sugar on medium speed until smooth and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl. Add the 2 eggs and 1 tbsp vanilla and continue beating on medium speed until combined, 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl again.
Add the 210g flour blend, 1.5g xanthan gum (if your blend doesn’t have any), 35g milk powder, 20g cocoa, 2 tsp baking powder, 3g salt, and 1g instant coffee (optional). Mix on low speed until combined, about 1 minute. Beat in the chopped chocolates on low until dispersed. Optionally, chill the bowl with the dough inside for about 20 minutes to make the dough easier to shape.
To shape the biscotti: Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and roll it around until it’s lightly coated in flour and not sticking. If still sticky, keep adding dustings of flour until it can be rolled around without sticking.
Transfer dough to the prepared baking sheet and flatten into a rectangle with your hands. The height is up to you: taller dough will get you taller final biscotti and vice versa. I go for about half an inch (1.3cm) high which gives me biscotti that are 1-1.5 inches (2.5-3.8cm) tall. Press the sides to create straight edges and look at it from the side to ensure it’s evenly thick across the surface.
Brush the tops and sides of the dough with the beaten egg and sprinkle with turbinado sugar. Transfer the baking sheet, uncovered, to the freezer and chill for 20-30 minutes. If you don’t have space in your freezer, that’s alright: chill the dough longer (about an hour or more) before shaping so the dough is still going into the oven moderately cold. (Tip 2)
Preheat the oven to 160°C (325°F) fan/convection.
Once chilled and firm, bake the dough until the top has lost its sheen and it feels dry when touched, about 25 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven. Reduce the oven temperature to 150°C (300°F) fan.
Let the cookie mass cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, then carefully transfer the entire mass to a cutting board. I usually slide the paper onto the cutting board, then slide the paper out from underneath the mass. The mass should be horizontal to your body, meaning the long side is facing you and your cuts will be along the shorter dimension.
Use a serrated knife to cut the ends of the mass (eat these while they’re still warm as you cut), then cut into 3/4-inch (~2cm) thick slices. Be gentle, sawing back and forth without pushing downward aggressively. Use your other hand to stabilise the biscotti as you cut them.
Gently transfer the biscotti back to the baking sheet, standing them on their bottom edge. Place into the oven and bake until their cut sides feel firm and dry, about 20 minutes. If you can still squish them a bit, that’s fine. They will finish drying as they cool.
Let them cool on the baking sheet. Dust with icing sugar before serving, if desired.

Storage: Store the biscotti in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.

Serving suggestion: As addressed above, don’t you dare eat these without dunking. Let the cookies totally soak up the liquid so each bite is moist.

Tip 1: Quality chocolate makes a difference here. I’ve made this with chips most recently and it’s great, but using a chocolate bar that is yummy enough to eat on its own really shines in biscotti. In the midst of our shrinkflation hellscape, chocolate chip recipes keep changing and some are randomly quite nasty, so beware! Stick with quality bars if you can afford it.

Tip 2: Chilling and freezing this dough makes the mass bake more evenly and in a more controlled way, giving it height instead of spreading outward. This height is more important than in a standard cookie because we’re cutting slices from the mass, which would be pitifully squat if the mass spreads outward and flattens.

Notes for Nerds:

This is easy to scale. Multiply as desired and either split into even masses OR spread the single mass along a long sheet tray. Theoretically, you can make the mass as long as you want and you can control the final length of the biscotti by determining the width of the mass before baking.

You can freeze the egg-washed and demerara-sprinkled masses on sheet trays for commercial settings so the biscotti can be baked as needed. Though biscotti lasts so long (no fighting against dryness here) that I have found this unnecessary.

I use King Arthur Gluten-Free Measure For Measure Flour here. If making your own blend, I recommend:

65g superfine white rice flour
36g superfine brown rice flour
38g cornstarch
32g tapioca starch
6g potato starch
29g powdered milk
4g (about 1 tsp) xanthan gum

I hope you give these biscotti a try and feel how open of a recipe this is. Use this as your template to explore many other flavours! You could add in nuts, dried fruit, candied ginger, use fun chocolate chips (I may try with salted caramel chips soon), or dip half of the biscotti in chocolate.

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Next week I will share my recipe for Tres Leches.

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