Every year I choose something to bake for my neighbors. I’m a little reserved and this small gift is meant to testify that I’m not a complete hermit. I enjoy this sort of thing very much, and I try to imagine receiving something yummy. This led to a down-sizing of my gifts because most of my neighbors are empty-nesters and don’t have enough mouths to eat a dozen cookies or a pie.
This year it’s biscotti. The choice was a bit risky, but a few crunchy cookies to dip in your morning coffee seemed like a good choice and a good size. I had never made biscotti, but I watch enough baking shows that it seemed very doable. Just to make sure I would be successful I hunted up three Martha Stewart recipes. Martha’s recipes strike a balance between simple and worth-doing. The three recipes all recommended different procedures, and I followed each one to the letter, learning a lot in the process. The biggest revelation I hadn’t seen in the baking shows was that biscotti dough is sticky. Getting it out onto the well-floured countertop required lots of implements and patience, but boy was it worth it.
Biscotti do this magic trick of turning from a break-your-teeth-brick into a delicious cookie with the briefest of dunks in your tea or coffee. Homemade are better than store-bought. This is a trick I will pull out of my sleeve often. Thank you, Martha, for this and all the other things.
Pecan Cranberry Biscotti
https://www.marthastewart.com/336133/pecan-cranberry-biscotti
Cherry Almond Biscotti
https://www.marthastewart.com/316102/cherry-almond-biscotti
Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti
https://www.marthastewart.com/1129608/chocolate-hazelnut-biscotti
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