NUT, SEED & RAISIN BISCOTTI…Preciously jeweled cookies!

Deeba @ PAB

15 years ago

“Every oak tree started out as a couple of nuts who decided to stand their ground.”
Unknown

Doing rounds of blogs is never easy when you have to run a regular life too, full of routine stuff like laundry, grocery & school trips galore. Junior goes to a new grade in another week, so half the days were scheduled with PTA’s, orientations, new books & uniforms etc. The past week has been even more hectic with the kids at home (Spring Break), & I’ve had little or no time to blog hop.

One blog that I often attempt to stop at is Heidi @ 101 Cookbooks because it’s always got some path breaking stuff that you get hypnotized to try. The pictures are mesmerising, & the gentle persuasive nature of her posts have you literally eating off her blog. The ‘Nut & Seed Biscotti‘ or jewelled biscotti was such one case which I chanced by about a month ago. Heidi posted a ‘cracker’ of a biscotti, the ‘Nut & Seed’ Biscotti which looked very pretty & maybe easy to slice thin, or so I thought.

Should have known better, because nuts are nuts after all, but she had me chopping the nuts of my bookmarked recipe at a frantic pace the next morning after the kids left for school. The recipe itself is simple & ‘packed with nuts’…very jewel studded indeed, like the Queen’s crown. However, it wasn’t as simple to slice thinly as the jewels had a mind of their own. I managed fairly well, but didn’t get anywhere close to the thin, gorgeous slices that Heidi did.

Maybe it was because I added raisins too, or my knife wasn’t good enough, or the loaf was undercooked, though it tested done. As Helen says in the recipe “Bake for 45-50 minutes – or until the loaf tests done. If you under-cook the loaf at this stage, it makes slicing difficult.” I shall definitely give this a try again as it was deliciously studded & very YUM! Healthy & hugely successful with the kids too.

My nut mixture was a blend of 1 cup lightly toasted almonds, 1/3 cup each of lightly toasted pistachio nuts, and pumpkin seeds, and 1/2 a cup each of green & black raisins. We don’t get wholewheat pastry flour here, so I used a third cup of oatmeal flour.

NUT, SEED & RAISIN BISCOTTI

adapted from 101 Cookbooks

Ingredients:
1 cup plain flour

1/3 cup oatmeal flour
2 cups mixed nuts,raisins etc (almonds, pistachio nuts, pumpkins seeds, green & black raisins)

1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup light brown sugar, fine grain
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Method:

Preheat oven to 150C. Lightly butter or oil a 1-pound loaf pan and line with parchment paper.
Combine the flour, nuts and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. In a separate large bowl whisk together eggs and sugar.
Add the flour-nut mixture to the egg mixture and stir until combined. The dough will be quite thick. Scoop into the prepared pan and press the dough into place using damp fingertips.
Make sure everything is nice and compact, level on top, with no air bubbles. (I sprinkled some left over oatmeal flour on top).
Bake for 45-50 minutes – or until the loaf tests done. If you under-cook the loaf at this stage, it makes slicing difficult.
Remove loaf from the oven, and turn the oven up to 220C.
Immediately run a sharp knife around the perimeter of the loaf, remove it from pan, and set the loaf upside down on a cutting board. Using a thin serrated knife (or the thinnest, sharpest knife you have), slice the loaf into 1/4-inch thick slices.
Place the slices on a baking sheet. brush tops with a bit of olive oil and bake for 3-4 minutes or until the bottoms are a touch golden and toasty. Pull them out of the oven, flip each one, and brush the other side with olive oil. Bake for another 4-5 minutes or until nice and crisp. Let cool.
Makes 1 1/2 – 2 dozen.