Eggnog Biscotti Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Should you refrigerate biscotti dough before baking? ›

You guessed it, add the dry ingredients to the large bowl with the wet ingredients. Fold in the pistachios, cardamom, and vanilla extract. Because the dough can be sticky and hard to form, it's important to chill the batter for a good 30 minutes before baking the first time.

If the biscotto feels soft, like a piece of cake, give it another 5 minutes in the oven. If it feels firm but still gives a bit when you poke it, take it out for rather soft-textured but still crunchy biscotti.

If your biscotti are too soft then it is likely that the cookies were not baked for long enough second time around. If your biscotti slices are around 1/2cm/1/4 inch thick then they should only need around 20 minutes in an oven preheated to 180c/350F to dry out sufficiently.

A: Overbaking the logs of dough during the first baking can make the slices crumble as you are cutting them. Also, even if the logs of dough are perfectly baked, they will crumble if they are sliced while still warm, so be patient. The logs crumble when you use a dull knife, too.

Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool. As a result, the cookies will expand more slowly, holding onto their texture. If you skip the chilling step, you're more likely to wind up with flat, sad disks instead of lovely, chewy cookies. Cookies made from chilled dough are also much more flavorful.

The trickiest parts of making them are the mixing and the shaping and baking. Just like biscuits, you can't overmix the dough. I found that if the dough is mixed too much, the biscotti becomes dense and heavy.

Despite their centuries-old heritage, there is no one perfect way to make biscotti. Some recipes call for eggs only, which is the traditional method, while others swear by butter or oil. The choice is yours; just keep in mind that those made with butter or oil will have both a softer texture and a shorter shelf life.

Biscotti dough is inherently sticky. I recommend adequately flouring your hands before working the dough, and if it's still too sticky to handle, add a little flour at a time but just enough so you can work with it.

Most baked goods need a leavening agent to make them rise, and if you leave it out, your cake or your cookies will fall flat. Baking powder makes dough rise because it contains both a base and an acid in dried form.

Baking soda – baking soda helps the biscotti rise and spread. Make sure that your baking soda isn't expired. Sugar- we used granulated sugar for this recipe. You can use caster sugar as well.

Do you need to sift flour for biscotti? ›

In summary, to produce a consistent crunch in your biscotti, it is necessary to measure and sift the ingredients. It may take some trial and error before you find out what ratio of flour-to-fat that works best for you, but remember that sifting and measuring your ingredients helps create perfect crispiness!

Divide into two equal portions and roll into 15cm long logs (or shorter if you want larger biscotti). Place on a silpad or well greased baking sheet. Bake for 30 minutes or until firm. Set aside and allow to cool for 10minutes before slicing with a serrated knife into 3mm thick slices.

If you stand up your slices on the baking pan, with a little space in between, they crisp up better. The thing that makes biscotti biscotti is baking them in a log, slicing them on the diagonal, and then baking them a second time so they are crispy all the way through.

But if you chill your pan of biscuits in the fridge before baking, not only will the gluten relax (yielding more tender biscuits), the butter will harden up. And the longer it takes the butter to melt as the biscuits bake, the more chance they have to rise high and maintain their shape. So, chill... and chill.

You can chill your dough during either the first or second rise. Your yeast won't give you much love if it's asked to do both rises in the fridge, so it's best to do one or the other at room temperature. One of Clara's favorite recipes to make with a cold ferment is Vermont Sourdough.

Place the dough in a floured bowl and let it chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. You can even store the dough overnight if you decide you've had enough biscotti-making for one day (we won't tell). The dough will firm up in the refrigerator, making it easier to shape.

This is really the game changing tip: a really cold pie dough is so much easier to roll than a slightly chilled pie dough. Almost every pie dough recipe I have ever seen says to chill your pie dough for two hours.