Some time back I received a beautiful parcel from Asha, or the FSK gal as I call her, a NYC blogger who blogs at Fork-Spoon-Knife. There was so much excitement in my little boys’ life when the parcel arrived. He was besides himself with joy to see the contents. Some fab fresh ground coffee beans from Picollo Cafe, and a charming bottle of aged balsamic vinegar! A huge chunk of time went in the boy trying to sniff out coffee flavours, and every so often he would look at the coffee and ask me when I’d make something with it?
The time came this week. I wanted to bake something, and it felt like biscotti time. My eyes wandered around the bookshelf for a cookie book, but instead latched onto my precious package of coffee staring at me. Asha said she saw a quaint little cafe while strolling around the streets of NYC, instantly thought of my love for all things coffee, and bought some beans for me. Thank you Asha! I loved your wonderful gift!
It was Google time for coffee biscotti and I landed up at a coffee loaded site/forum called ‘Coffee Snobs‘. It was an instant connect. I’m not a coffee snob but I sure love my coffee; and this seemed like the place for me. This recipe is adapted from one I found in the threads shared there by one of the members there.
Adaptations? With the use of alternative grains gaining ground in the cuilnary world, I thought of using some buckwheat flour. A while ago I made some nice Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies using a 101 Cookbooks recipe, so I decided to include some in the biscotti too. A small reduction in the ground coffee beans and sugar, a little increase in butter, and these Italian cookies were baking in next to no time.
The aromas and the flavours filled the house – Coffee Coffeee Coffeeeeeee …. every breath I took. The biscotti sliced beautifully and baked to crisp perfection. This is a nice adult biscotti for all you coffee lovers out there. Once made, I thought it would taste even better dipped into some melted dark chocolate. The result was ULTIMATE COFFEE & BISCOTTI NIRVANA!
One crunchy bite later, and I was convinced that buckwheat was meant for this! Buckwheat flour has a beautiful nutty flavour, and lent all it’s goodness to this crisp twice baked cookie. I hesitatingly offered a biscotti each to the kids, knowing that it would be too coffee-ish and probably less sweet for them! Just to prove me wrong, they loved it a LOT! For those of you who don’t love coffee, I have worked out a non-coffee variant and shall post that soon!
Double Chocolate Espresso Biscotti Recipe adapted fromCoffee Snobs 2tbsps ground coffee beans 40ml espresso(os dark coffee concentrate) 140g butter 180g vanilla sugar 2 small eggs 1 tsp pure vanilla extract 200g plain flour 70g buckwheat flour 1 1/2 tsp baking powder pinch salt 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips 1 sachet vanilla sugar to sprinkle on top 100gms dark chocolate, melted
Method:
Preheat oven to 170 C. Line a baking sheet with parchment.
Stir in the ground coffee powder into the espresso. Stand aside. (I didnt have espresso so used a strong coffee concentrate).
Cream butter and sugar, beat in eggs, vanilla and coffee mix.
Stir in flour mix and fold in the mini chocolate chips.
Shape into two equal logs 35 cm x 5 cm, about 1.5 cm high, on baking paper or greased tray (easiest done with wet hands). Sprinke the logs over with vanilla sugar.
Bake 25 minutes until lightly browned, cool 5 mins. Cut into slices using a bread knife (add no pressure, let the knife do the work).
Rebake slices at 160C until dry, approx 10 minutes.
♥ Thank you for stopping by ♥
In case you are wondering what the atempted scribbling on the biscotti is all about, it’s for Eating Your Words… ‘Write, spell or draw’ using food or drink. A fun challenge hosted by Savor The Thyme and Tangled Noodle. The biscotti offered the perfect canvas for some chocolate doodling! My original idea was to do write on some macarons for Le Mac de Jour for Mac Attack5, but it didn’t materialise at all!
As if thechallenge itselfand the prize was not enough, the 2 lovely ladies have asked Chef Andrew Zimmern of Bizaare Foods on The Travel Channel to decide the winner for the challenge!! This is my entry for the challenge, and a pretty addictive one it turned out to be. The kids had a field day choosing the words they wanted to eat!
