Raisin and Almond Biscotti

Now what did I say about biscotti madness? I generally try to steer clear of sweet, baked goods with exception of the occasional bran muffin or coffee cake for breakfast. Ice cream and chocolate though, is a separate, divine subject which must not be broached upon. But yes, I steer far, far away from cookies and cake if I can. Genetics is evil.

I am however, addicted to biscotti because it's only as sweet as you want to make it, and it's one of those baked goodies that actually work without butter OR oil. It's like God's gift to the mouths that constantly need to chew on something (that's me). I recently discovered that by adding one additional egg to the recipe, I can cut out the olive oil entirely, yielding a crisp biscotti that melts in your mouth as you sip down a cup of hot coffee. The general recipe can be found here, substituting an egg for the 5 tablespoons of olive oil. I also substituted raisins for the cranberries, to yield a healthy, brain-food biscotti product. I used half of the biscotti batch with the chocolate dip recipe and kept the other half plain.

I also learned a really good way to shape the biscotti into logs. Scatter flour over a piece of parchment or wax paper and turn the dough onto the floured paper. Use the floured paper to shape the dough. Place your pan over the shaped dough and flip it over, then remove the wax paper. It's really easy and saves you clean up time! My biscotti now actually look like REAL biscotti. Yay!