Monday, August 8, 2011

SS#1: Almond and Chocolate Chunk Biscotti


The inaugural bake for the Sunday Sweets with David, an Almond and Chocolate Chunk Biscotti, was a huge hit in my household!  I've been making biscotti pretty consistently now for almost two years, and while they've always gone pretty quickly, only two were left after the third day of baking.

Granted, I did tweak things a bit when I prepared this recipe...for shame, I know!  While I stuck to the method---whipping the egg whites, sugar, and vanilla for about 5 minutes (which was new to me when it comes to biscotti)---DL mentions a variation with chocolate chips instead of the chopped chocolate.  He prefers the irregularity of the chunks---I prefer the convenience of having half a bag of chocolate chips to use up. ;)  I also didn't cut them quite as thin as I could have after the first bake.  One of the issues I've run into in the past with biscotti is breakage due to the length and width of the cookie post-second baking.  I'm tempted in the future to keep everything in one log, rather than divide it into two--just to get those nice, substantial pieces of biscotti like I've seen at some of the coffee shops here in the US.  While this means the biscotti wasn't as brittle as the thinner pieces have been, it was safer to the roofs of our mouths. :)

Looking forward to next month's bake!

Monday, August 1, 2011

Skip-a-dee doo dah...

Hi, y'all-

I'm skipping this month's bake, Creme Brulee.  I've never been a fan of the texture, and instead took the opportunity to bake up some Oreo Brownies for a friend of ours on his birthday!

See you next month, and happy baking!  If you're in warmer climates...I feel your pain!  Forecast this week is 106-108 all week long...not so much fun in front of the stoves at work, and worse when the A/C goes out!  YIKES!

Yours in butter and heavy cream,

Ryan