Dorie's Marching Band and a couple of awards!

I love crunchy, not too sweet biscotti. Especially when the weather cools down and I'm sitting in my office with a hot cup of tea. Last Christmas for the first time I made biscotti and after my first batch, I was hooked. I made batch after batch of different types of biscotti! I have bookmarked a few recipes that I have seen and not made yet for this fall and am looking forward to trying the new flavors!

This week I had my chance to make a new recipe for biscotti as for Tuesdays with Dorie we made the Lenox Almond Biscotti on page 141-143 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking cookbook. The recipe is a little different for me as it called for cornmeal. I wasn't too sure as I am not crazy about the "gritty" feel you get with cornmeal. I mixed the dough up and it came together just as Dorie said. But that is about where it stopped going as it should.

I patted the logs out onto my cookie sheet (wish I had taken a photo here) and it looked about right. Then, when I peeked in the oven while baking, I notices how huge and spread out the logs were becoming. Good thing I used a large sheet with the biscotti quite far apart from each other! After recommended the 15 minutes of cooking I went to take my biscotti out of the oven for the 30 minute cooling period. Um, the biscotti couldn't come out. There was no way. It was still raw in the middle. So, I left it in the oven probably about 15 more minutes before I could pull it out. It couldn't be raw in the middle as I still had to cut thru and make the logs. There was no way I was cutting though raw dough and still have it retain it's shape! Once it was ready to come out, I sat the logs out to cool. I was bad. I only let them cool about 15 minutes then I started cutting. The logs cut perfectly! I lined them up like a marching band (this really took me back to my young days as my brother was in a marching band - and to the present as my cousin has children who are in a marching band and I love watching them!) as Dorie stated and put them back in the oven. The recipe states to put them back in for 15 more minutes, but mine ended up being in there longer, more like 20. I then shut the oven off and propped the door open. I wanted them dry and was making sure they were going to be!


This recipe made quite a bit of biscotti. I tried one and for myself, I didn't really care if I ate anymore. It was that cornmeal grittiness I didn't care for. I also thought they were too sweet for me. I did play around some as I didn't have almonds. I used chopped mixed nuts for the nuts (the onese you get for topping sundaes!) and threw in what I had left of the chopped macadamia nuts. Since I wasn't using almonds, I used Mexican Vanilla for the flavor. I packed up half of the biscotti and took them to my parents. I barely got in the door and my brother saw them and immediately got into them. Dad and Bro both loved the biscotti and the fact there was none left by the time I went home was testament to that fact! I took the other half of the batch to work where they also disappeared. While I liked the flavor, I didn't care for the texture and will probably not make this specific recipe again (mostly because if I am making biscotti, I want to eat it too!) :D

Thanks to Gretchen of Canela & Comino for choosing this recipe for us to try. If you are interested in viewing the recipe, you can visit her blog! Check the Tuesdays with Dorie Blogroll for other creations of the biscotti!

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Last week I was the recipient of two more awards. Jo of The Adventures of Kitchen Girl awarded me with the Brillante Blog Award and Lisa of Jersey Girl Cooks awarded me with the Chocoaholic Award (hmmm, wonder what prompted that?) :D

I would like to pass these on to a few new blog friends.

The Brillante Blog Award goes to:
Stephanie of Fun Foods on a Budget. Stephanie does a great job of creating delicious looking meals like her title implies.....on a budget! I am impressed at how well she does (better than I do!).

The Chocoholic Award goes to:I only know her as Flourchild! I have become acquainted with her blog thru Tuesdays with Dorie. Her most recent creation was the Fudge Pecan Topped Brownie Cake - her version of the Caramel Peanut one we made last week. This alone makes her worthy of the award. I think I would have liked her cake better than my own!