Shannon's Lemon Biscotti With Dark Chocoate and Almonds
contributed by Shannon
Biscotti is a type of Italian hard cookie, meant to be dipped in a hot drink (like tea or coffee, or hot chocolate) and promptly eaten.
6tbs. butter
1c. sugar
2 eggs
1tsp. vanilla
zest of one lemon
juice of one lemon
about 2 1/3 c. flour (adjust as necessary for for wetness or dryness of your mixture)
1tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt.
1 package dark chocolate chips
about 2c. thinly sliced almonds toasted
Set aside chocolate chips and almonds, to be used later. Preheat oven to 350 degrees farenheit. Mix all wet ingredients and sugar until smooth. Add all dry ingredients except flour and mix. (make sure there are no lumps in the salt or baking powder, no one wants to bite into a clump of that!) Add flour, starting out with 2c. and then slowly adding more until dough just pulls away from sides of bowl. (It'll be a little sticky, you want it to be somewhere in between chocolate chip cookie dough and bread dough) flour your hands and separate dough into two approx. even balls. Form dough into two logs approx. 10in (or so, doesn't have to be exact) in length and place on greased cookie sheet (make sure there's a couple of inches in between). When Shannon did this she covered her cookie sheet with aluminum foil and greased that, which made cleanup much easier. Bake in a 350 degree oven for half an hour. Take out and let cool completely. When cooled, slice on diagonal (about a 45 degree angle), and place cookies cut side up on baking sheet. Still at 350, bake cookies for about 8 min., take out, turn over, and bake for another 8 min. or so (for harder crunchier cookies, bake for longer, for softer ones, decrease cooking time. This dough is actually not as crunchy as many, so keep that in mind when adjusting for personal tastes).
Melt chocolate chips in the top of a double boiler over not in boiling water. Carefully spoon melted chocolate over 1/2 of biscotti on both sides (by one half I mean 1/2 of the length) holding it over pot of chocolate to let drips fall back into pot. Be careful, 'cause the cookies may be a little crumbly and you don't want to loose half of your cookie in the chocolate! While chocolate is still warm, press toasted almonds into chocolate, and then lay biscotti out on wax paper to let the chocolate cool. Enjoy!!