Cornmeal-Nut Biscotti

The past few weeks have been a blur of activity...we've had several visits from various family members AND have ourselves been out visiting with various family members and friends. There was a fabulous weekend at the house where we grilled and ate just about everything in sight and drank lots of delicious wine, there have even been a few good dining out experiences that may even be blog worthy if I can ever find the time to catch up with myself. I've been spending my days taking Little Miss to just about every park and playground in this city and browsing through every bookstore or gourmet food market we find along the way. My evenings are spent at work while Tom takes his turn caring for the baby. I have had no time to cook, or even restock our now almost empty cupboards and all I have to say is waaaaah I really miss cooking.

So, in true Deb fashion, on the hottest, steamiest day of the year with some free time to kill before needing to get ready for work, I decided to whip a little something up. Of course it is just like me to decide that the one thing, the ONLY thing I wanted to make required using the oven. I mean really, can you blame me? What's sweating and losing a few quarts of water when there is fresh biscotti to eat?

The recipe for these wonderfully crunchy textured and fragrant biscotti came from a beautiful and creative cookbook called "The Last Course-The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern" by Claudia Fleming with Melissa Clark.

The cookies were a little unusual to make, well unusual to me at least because of the addition of fresh rosemary (ahhhh, its hours later and my fingers still smell like rosemary). They are very tasty cookies, I LOVE that you can smell AND taste the rosemary and anise, and was surprised that the orange zest didn't make more of an impression considering how much I used. The cornmeal added a light crunchy texture to the cookie and that was nice. I had been worried that the cornmeal might make the dough too difficult to slice but my fears were unfounded and the biscotti slicing event was THE BEST so far. These are not sweet cookies by any means, they are meant to be dunked and eaten with sweeter things like dessert wine or creamy sweet Vietnamese style coffee. If I were to make these again (which I will) I would add a little more sugar to the dough and perhaps finish the final baked cookie off with a little piping of white or dark chocolate.

From "The Last Course-The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern" by Claudia Fleming with Melissa Clark. (notes in italics are mine)

Cornmeal-Nut Biscotti

Yield: about 2 1/2 dozen biscotti

• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped, blanched almonds
• 1/4 cup coarsely chopped skinned hazelnuts (I used chopped hazelnuts with the skins still on them and it was fine)
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 tablespoons fineley grated orange zest
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup coarse yellow cornmeal
• 1/2 cup sugar (if you like a sweeter cookie I suggest using more sugar)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon anise seeds
• 2 large eggs
• Egg wash made with 1 egg and 1 tablespoon water

Prehat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spread the nuts out on a baking sheet and toast them in the oven, stirring occasionally, until they a lightly golden around the edges, 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack (keep the oven on)

In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Turn off the heat and add the orange zest and rosemary. Let cool.

In the bowl of an electric mixer set on low speed, mix together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking soda, and anise. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. add the cooled, melted butter mixture and mix to combine. Stir in the nuts. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.

With wet hands, (this really does help) form the dough into a log 2 inches wide and place it on a parchment-lined baking sheet. (your log is going to spread out, and no matter how many times you try to shape it back into a nice 2 inch log it will spread. Don't spend another minute worrying over it, this actually works out in the long run) Brush the log with egg wash and bake until it is a deep golden brown, about 30 minutes. Let it cool on a wire rack. Reduce the oven temperature to 200 degrees F.

Using a serrated knife, slice the log on a diagonal into 1/4 inch-thick pieces. Arrange the biscotti on 2 parchment-lined baking sheets and dry them in the oven until crispy, about 1 hour. Let cool on a wire rack.

Serving Suggestion

• Serve with Blood-Orange Sorbet (page 93), Roasted Apricots with Chamomile (page 35), or Roasted Chestnut-Honey Pears (page 71).

Written by Deb on May 12, 2004 02:34 AM