Macaroons biscotti with white chocolate. Italian biscotti cookies Biscotti cake recipe

Biscotti - or "biscotto" as it is also called - is one of the most popular Italian Christmas desserts in the form of sweet curved cookies. The word “biscotti” itself explains the peculiarities of preparing the delicacy - from Italian it is translated as “twice baked”.

There are several famous recipes preparing biscotti. For variety, you can add nuts, lemon or orange zest, dried fruits, spices and chocolate pieces to cookies. Traditionally, Italians complement these pastries with a glass of sweet Vin Santo wine. However, biscotti can also be served with tea, coffee or sweet varieties of vermouth.

Name:	Biscotti cookies
Date added:	06.04.2016
Cooking time:	45 min.
Recipe servings:	8
Rating:	(No rating)

Ingredients

Biscotti cookie recipe

Preheat the oven to 155 degrees. Place the almonds on a baking sheet and dry for 8-10 minutes. Cool the nuts and crush them into large pieces. Sift the flour, mix with sugar, add baking powder, add salt, and stir in the crushed almond pieces.

Wash the eggs, separate the white from one egg and place in a separate bowl. Beat the remaining yolks and whites with a fork. Add vanilla sugar and water to the mixture. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture, mix thoroughly. Add raisins and dried cranberries and stir again.
Don't limit yourself to the classic recipe - experiment with the filling! Transfer the dough to a work surface and roll out into three “baguettes” up to 5 cm wide. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Arrange the “baguettes”, leaving a distance of 4-5 cm between them so that the cookies do not stick together. Whisk egg white, grease the dough. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees.

Bake the pieces for 35 minutes. Let cool for about 15 minutes. Using a sharp knife, cut the dough into slices 1.5 cm wide. Place the slices on a baking sheet and place in the oven for another 15 minutes. Finished baked goods can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks.

I would make Italian biscotti cookies or croutons just because of the name, and the fact that they can be stored for two weeks makes it even more interesting so that biscotti (a classic recipe) appears on the blog. These delicious cookies are also called cantucci or cantuccini (which means baked twice in the oven). They are baked with nuts, which in itself is even tastier.

I want to say that I had my eye on it for a long time, and I saw a presentation of the recipe from Yulia Vysotskaya in Italy about it, but it always seemed to me that it needed to use almond flour. And that stopped me. But no, you need the most ordinary flour. And even all the products are affordable: you don’t even need to go to the store again. Provided you have nuts.

This is where it all started for this recipe this time. It so happened that I was lucky: they gave me a huge package of hazelnuts and my mother also presented me with walnuts. So, it was a sin to eat them just like that, without making biscotti cookies with nuts like this.

So, biscotti and cantucci from Italian housewives:

Ingredients

150 g assorted nuts
400 g sifted wheat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
200 g sugar
2 tsp. vanilla sugar
4 raw chicken eggs
2 tablespoons water
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. lie butter

How to make biscotti

First you need to separate the white from the yolk in one egg. Set the egg white aside (you can put it in the refrigerator to cool, since we will need to beat it later). Mix three eggs and another yolk vigorously with a fork until smooth, adding two tablespoons cold water.

In a separate deep bowl, mix flour, sugar, vanilla sugar, baking powder.

Take nuts (here any nuts that you like or that you have are suitable for us). I, as I already wrote, had hazelnuts and walnuts. The classic biscotti recipe involves the use of almonds. If you make it with almonds, you will need to peel them, and this is a whole procedure. in this recipe.

So, the nuts need to be chopped in large pieces: I literally cut the hazelnuts in half and also chopped the walnuts coarsely.

And you can start preparing the dough. To do this, place the eggs beaten with water into a container with flour and sugar, and knead the dough. You need to knead for quite a long time, as the dough turns out stiff and unyielding. But this is exactly what we need. If it’s not kneading at all, then you can add a spoonful of cold water, and things will be more fun.

When the dough is already like this, you can add pieces of nuts and mix so that they are evenly distributed over the dough.

At this stage, I remembered a cartoon about how the dough ran away, and while running through the forest, it collected a lot of nuts and berries... By the way, about berries. You can add a handful of dried cranberries or cherries to the biscotti (then they will be even more attractive when cut) or add raisins. I had neither one nor the other, and it turned out well too.

Make a sausage out of each kolobka by rolling it out with your hands and sprinkling the surface with flour. The length of the sausage should not exceed the width of the baking sheet on which you are going to bake our cookies.

This makes three sausages like this.

They need to be placed on a baking sheet greased with butter and sprinkled with flour. The sausages should not lie tightly; there should be a distance of 5-6 cm between them.

And brush the top with egg white beaten with one teaspoon of salt.

Then the greased sausages are sent to an oven heated to 180 degrees, where they need to be baked for half an hour. Check readiness with a match or toothpick. If you are not sure if it is done, leave it to bake for another 5-10 minutes.

After you take them out of the oven, they turn out so beautiful and rosy.

They need to be allowed to cool so that they can be cut easily.

Cut diagonally so that each cracker is approximately 1 centimeter thick. You need a sharp knife! We cut and put back on the same baking sheet. What comes out is this huge baking tray with nut cookies.

And now all we have to do is put these crackers back in the oven for at least ten minutes. There they will dry out, and after they cool, they will become completely dry and hard. This is exactly what we need.

I read that biscotti are also called cantuccini precisely because they are put into the oven a second time. Both names are better than the other. And I like cantuccini even more. And it turns out two in one.

After they have cooled, the crackers can be folded into glass jar or just a beautiful box, like I did. Italians serve these cookies with sweet dessert wine or coffee. These crackers are supposed to be dipped in wine and eaten that way.

It turns out very tasty. I haven’t tried it with wine yet, but with coffee and especially milk (I already came up with this myself) it turns out surprisingly tasty.

Delicious cookies to you.

Without exaggeration, everyone knows Italian biscotto or biscotti (more often they are spoken of in the plural). It’s not just that, it can easily be called a symbol of the vast world of cookies. True, outside Italy, including in our country, the term biscotti is not used entirely correctly. Italians use it to refer to all types of dry, crispy baked goods of various shapes, sizes and flavors.

We mean only one variety, which in the republic is called cantuccini, cantucci or biscotti from Prato.

Therefore, the question that some people have, “what is the difference between biscotti and cantucci?” will seem ridiculous in their homeland. Cantucci is a variant of biscotti, but in our understanding it is generally the same pastry. The recipe for cantucci appeared relatively recently - in, presumably in 1691 in Prato. And biscotti, as a dry and long-storable baked goods, were born back in.

They were made for soldiers going on long marches. Unleavened cakes flavored with almonds were baked again after cooking to remove any remaining moisture. Hence the name Biscotti, which means “twice baked”. The shelf life of such delicacies was so long that the philosopher Plinius the Elder (Plinius Maior) once boasted that they would be edible for several centuries. When the Roman Empire collapsed, cookies disappeared with it until the Renaissance.

Tuscan bakers have filled the once bland bun with new flavors. They added anise vodka, lemon, and various spices to the dough. Almonds were included in cookies later, and then other nuts and dried fruits, as well as raisins, figs, dates and quinces, began to be used. The most daring chefs supplemented the taste of biscotti with pieces of chocolate. In the 19th century, Antonio Mattei (a pastry chef from Prato) put an end to his search for the best option

cantucci, developing a recipe that has become a classic.

He has received many awards at exhibitions in Italy and abroad. It also received special praise at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1867. His shop "Mattonella" still exists today in Prato and is considered the place of "custody of the cantucci tradition."

Description Biscotti have a traditional elongated shape obtained by cutting baked dough diagonally. The surface of the cookie is golden with inclusions of whole almonds. The length may vary, but, as a rule, does not exceed 10 cm. butter– olive. Unroasted almonds are used in baking. Traditionally, cantucci is sold accompanied by another Tuscan delicacy, Brutti ma Buoni.

Sometimes under the name “Biscotti di Prato” you can find not quite classic version. It may be one of many versions of cantucci, or it may be a counterfeit of the original variety. The latter is often characterized by the absence of oil and the presence of a large number of flavors.

Recipes

One Italian dessert you can easily make is cantucci, a sweet treat with a homey flavor. In Italy, it is traditionally accompanied by a glass of Santo wine or served at the end of the meal.

There are many versions of biscotti di Prato. For example, the option with pistachios. But original recipe This cookie only includes almonds.

Classical

To make classic cantucci you will need:

Flour – 400 g;
Eggs – 3 pcs.;
Baking powder (baking powder) – 0.5 sachets;
Sugar – 100 g;
Almonds – 100 g;
Salt - a pinch.

To knead the dough, you need to prepare a work surface. Wash and dry the table or large cutting board in advance. Pour a mound of flour onto it, at the top of which we make a large depression. There we send baking powder, sugar, salt and eggs. Mix everything thoroughly with your hands. The result is a very elastic, soft mass. If the dough turns out to be tight, then add a little milk, if liquid, add a handful of flour. you love more delicate pastries? Then add 15 g of melted butter to the mixture.

Lightly fry the almonds in a frying pan or in the oven. The process should only take a few minutes, as the nuts will be ready when baked in the dough.

Add the finished almonds to the resulting mass and mix until the nuts are evenly distributed. Finally we form long and narrow loaves. Their width does not exceed 3 cm.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, and cover a baking sheet with parchment paper, on which we distribute the loaves of dough. Bake for about 20 minutes. As soon as they begin to harden, take them out and cut them into pieces about 2 cm thick.

Place the almost finished biscotti di Prato in the oven again, but for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool completely. Your cantucci provide variety daily menu or will be a wonderful aperitif for wine on a festive table.

From Yulia Vysotskaya

The famous actress and part-time television chef also couldn’t do without a recipe for Italian biscotti. Her version has additional ingredients.

So, for biscotti from Yulia Vysotskaya you will need:

Flour – 200 g;
Sugar – 125 g;
Lemon – 2 pcs.;
Eggs – 2 pcs. and separately 1 yolk;
Almonds – 65 g;
Butter – 2 tbsp. spoons;
Pecans – 65 g;
Baking powder – 0.5 tbsp. spoons;
Corn or buckwheat flour– 1.5 tbsp. spoons.

First, beat the eggs and yolk with a whisk until the volume doubles. Combine flour with baking powder. Grind some of the nuts into fine crumbs. In a deep bowl, mix the prepared ingredients, add zest and 1 tbsp. spoon lemon juice, melted butter, whole nuts and cornmeal. Knead the dough and form one long and wide loaf about 2 cm high.

Bake in an oven preheated to 150 degrees for about 40 minutes. Cut into slices, which we dry at 180 degrees until the cantucci crust is browned. Let the baked goods cool and enjoy biscotti from Yulia Vysotskaya, accompanied by a cup of coffee.

Calorie content

Like other sweet treats, biscotti is a fairly high-calorie product. 100 g of dessert contains about 430 kcal, consisting of:

Proteins 8.3 g;
Fat 12.6 g;
Carbohydrates 70.5 g.

Most of nutritional value is due to the presence of sugar and almonds, so cookies are far from the diet of people leading a healthy lifestyle, or, conversely, having problems with excess weight. Although the cholesterol content in cantucci is relatively low - about 17 mg per 100 g.

Even the diet version without butter contains about 400 kcal. So if you can eat 2-3 cantuccias and stop, then it will be excellent option for your body. If your dose of biscotti is a pack of 250 g, then it is better not to store cookies in your pantry.

That's it for the story about famous cookies came to an end. Without a doubt, homemade baking has no equal. But to perfect the taste of your biscotti, you simply need to try the original in its homeland. Hurry to Italy, live boldly, joke soberly and remember: “There is no smoke without fire, and biscotti without a second baking!”

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Italian biscotti cookies have a very long history, and that’s why it’s not strange that authentic recipe managed to acquire a huge number of variations. Only one thing is certainly taken from the classics - the form and cooking technology. The biscotti “loaf” is traditionally baked twice and, if traditional recipe It was possible to include almonds in the dough as an additive, but modern classics allow dough mixes with other nuts, dried fruits and chocolate.

How Italians prepare biscotti - a classic recipe

Ingredients:

flour - 280 g;
baking powder - 6 g;
sugar - 140 g;
eggs - 2 pcs.;
Amaretto - 20 ml;
cups whole almonds;
butter - 50 g.

Preparation

Before making biscotti, set the temperature oven at 160 degrees. While the oven reaches the required temperature, prepare a mixture of dry ingredients by sifting flour with baking powder into a bowl and adding salt. Separately, beat the eggs with a mixer until a white, airy and foamy mass forms; without stopping the device, we begin to add sugar, pour in Amaretto and melted and then cooled butter. When the liquids are combined, add the flour mixture to them and knead a thick, non-sticky dough. During the kneading process, add almonds so that they are evenly distributed in the dough. Divide the resulting dough in half and roll it into two ropes, similar in shape to a loaf (20x6.5 cm). Place the loaves in the oven for half an hour, then remove, cool slightly and cut into slices 3-3.5 cm thick. Place the slices on the same parchment and bake at the same temperature for the same period of time, remembering to turn the cookies over to the other side after 10 -15 minutes.

How to bake Italian biscotti with olive oil?

Ingredients:

flour - 280 g;
- 30 g;
baking powder - 6 g;
sugar - 140 g;
zest of 1 orange and lemon;
olive oil - 90 ml;
eggs - 3 pcs.

Preparation

After passing the flour through a sieve, mix it with polenta and baking powder, and then add sugar to them. Having combined the dry ingredients together, add citrus zest to them and repeat the kneading procedure again.

Beat two whole eggs and one yolk with olive oil, and then pour the liquids into the dry ingredients of the cookies. At this stage, you are free to add any additives to the biscotti, from chocolate slices to dried berries.

Ready dough leave for 20 minutes in the refrigerator, divide in half and roll into two loaves, each of which is subsequently baked, brushed with the remaining egg white, for 25 minutes at 180 degrees. Cut the loaves into slices and repeat baking at 150 degrees for another half hour.

Ingredients:

Preparation

Having preheated the oven to 170 degrees, we proceed to the standard procedure - mixing the dry ingredients: flour, cocoa and soda. A pinch of salt wouldn’t be out of place in this mix.

In another bowl, also carefully beat the eggs with sugar. Add the liquids to the flour mixture and add the chocolate chips and hazelnuts. Divide the finished dough in half, roll the halves into bars of equal length and diameter, and then bake for 25 minutes. Let the dough bars cool for 15 minutes, cut into portions and bake again for 15-20 minutes, not forgetting to turn the cookies to the other side so that they brown as evenly as possible.

In the company of cooled biscotti, in addition to the standard addition like a cup of coffee or a glass of table wine, ice cream, salted caramel or.

Hi all! Today I invite you to make very tasty crispy cookies; I’ll tell you in detail how to make Italian biscotti croutons. They are easy to prepare, aromatic and go great with a cup of tea.

To bake this Italian delicacy, you don’t need exotic products, because it’s not for nothing that they say that everything ingenious is simple. For your convenience, I have prepared the recipe step by step and with photos.

If not overused, biscotti can even be beneficial for the body, thanks to the content of cranberries and almonds, rich in vitamins and minerals.

What will you need?

1. Almonds – 150 gr.
2. Chicken eggs (you can also use quail or guinea fowl eggs - whatever you can find) - 4 pcs.
3. Wheat flour – 400 gr.
4. Cold boiled water – 1 tbsp.
5. Sugar – 1 cup (250 gr.)
6. Dried cranberries– 50 gr.
7. Vanillin (vanilla sugar) – 1 sachet.
8. Baking powder - 1 tsp.
9. Salt – 1 tsp.

Preparation of ingredients:

First, we lay out all the products on the work surface so as not to have to look for them for a long time.

To make it tastier, I highly recommend sifting the flour thoroughly. I prefer to take iodized or edible sea salt, as it contains more useful substances, than usual.

As for the baking powder, it’s quite easy to make it yourself from 12 teaspoons of wheat flour or potato starch, 5 tsp. soda and 3 tsp. citric acid. All this needs to be mixed thoroughly, the result will be a mixture that will last for a long time.

It’s very easy to check eggs for freshness by placing them in a glass of water. A good, fresh egg will sink to the bottom, and a rotten one will hang out in the middle or even float to the surface due to hydrogen sulfide accumulated under the shell, the same gas that gives off a characteristic unpleasant odor.

Let's start cooking:

1. Separate a third of the nuts (50 grams) and peel them, placing them in a saucer with boiling water for 10-15 minutes, which is then drained.

The peel will come off very easily, just rub the almonds between your palms.

2. Now we need to dry the nuts, to do this we cover a baking sheet with baking paper and pour the almonds there. Leave for 10 minutes at an oven temperature of 140-150 degrees.

Turn off the heat, cool the nuts and chop them using a knife or any other in a convenient way(for example, in a mortar) into large pieces.

3. While the almonds are drying, you can make the dough. For it you need to take 1 egg, separate the white from the yolk and add the other 3 eggs to the yolk, it is better to take this one. Leave the white as we will use it to coat our biscotti. Add vanilla and a spoonful of water to the eggs, mix thoroughly. It is advisable to do this with a whisk.

4. The next step is to thoroughly mix salt, sugar and baking powder in a separate bowl.

5. Turn on the oven until it warms up to 180 degrees, add the egg mixture to the flour mixture.

6. Knead with your hands, gradually add chopped nuts - both dried and regular.

7. Pour in the cranberry powder and mix very thoroughly to form a homogeneous mass.

8. Divide the dough into 3 equal parts.

9. Parts and from each we form a sausage. We cover the baking sheet with paper and lay out our preparations, grease them with whipped egg white and leave for half an hour at 180 degrees.

11. Cut diagonally into pieces approximately 1*1 cm.

12. Place in the oven again for 10-15 minutes until they are golden brown and dry.

13. The cookies are ready, bon appetit!

As you can see, there is nothing complicated. You can change the recipe and add other nuts to the dough - walnuts, peanuts, cashews, hazelnuts. It turns out very tasty if you use spices - cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and various seeds, for example, poppy, sesame, flax-seed or sunflower.