TWD: Lenox Almond Biscotti

For your consideration: Lenox Almond Biscotti from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 141-143, featured this week on Tuesdays with Dorrie.

This was supposed to have been almond biscotti, but while I was in NY I had a monstrously large almond biscotti purchased from a cute little roadside farm stand, and I didn’t have the taste for more. I decided to take advantage of the fall flavors and do a Pumpkin Spice Biscotti instead. I changed the recipe thusly: instead of 1 cup sugar, I did ½ sugar and ½ brown sugar, added 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1 tsp. nutmeg, ½ tsp. ground ginger and ½ tsp. cloves. I did leave the actual almonds in since I wasn’t in the mood to chop up any pecans, which would probably have been better.

I think that substituting the sugar and the fact that I got distracted (again) and walked away from the mixer (oooh, look! shiny metallic object!) and accidentally let the butter beat itself into soup, that this made my “dough” more of a “batter”. There was no “stick-to-your-fingers dough” anywhere near here last night. I had more of a thickish batterish thing going on that I stuck in the freezer for about 30 minutes to firm up. I think this helped somewhat - I shudder to think of what this might have looked like without time in the chiller. As it was, it was rather uni-biscotti/uni-brow looking, sort of like a prom date I once had. (Loooooong story)

The rest of the recipe was swell, although for the second baking, I couldn’t figure out what the heck “stand them up like a marching band” was supposed to mean. A diagram or small photo would have been most helpful. Since our high school didn’t have a marching band (or maybe it did, but I most certainly wasn't in it and that whole time period is a nasty blur anyway: uni-brow, remember?) and since the Tournament of Roses Parade isn't for another 2½ months or so (OMG! WHAT?! ONLY 2½ MONTHS UNTIL NEW YEARS DAY?!) (see, there I go, hyperventilating and getting distracted again - serenity now! serenity now!), I kept them on the baking sheet in the same orientation as they originally baked, but skootched the pieces apart by about an inch so the cut edges would have a chance to get all crispy.

I was surprised that these turned out as well as they did since I’ve never made biscotti before. If I had, maybe I’d know what that whole marching band thing was about and not have to dredge up unpleasant visions of an excessively Neanderthal forehead and an equally ugly tuxedo. (Picture if you will: a black tuxedo with extra wide lapels and a baby blue shirt with massive quantities of ruffles down the front with a dinky bow tie perched delicately at the neck with a uni-brow on top. And no, I am not making this up.) These were great plain (the biscotti, not ape-boy, thank you very much) and I also dunked some in chocolate for a different change of pace (again, definitely NOT Cro-Magnon man, although a dunk in hot wax might have helped him somewhat. Actually, in hindsight, no, it wouldn't have, although he did try. My corsage was bigger than a dinner plate. It was one of those wristlet ones, so my knuckles dragged the ground on that side. I'll bet he felt a special kinship with me at that point) and packaged the rest up to send in to school.

Thanks to Gretchen from Canela & Comino for choosing this recipe. To see what all the other TWDers did with this recipe, check out the blogroll here. If you'd like to try making Lenox Almond Biscotti for yourself, you can find the recipe in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours.