TWD: Lenox Almond Biscotti

There, would you like a cup of coffee and some biscotti? It's that kind of day.

Honestly, I would never buy a biscotti. I generalize them as tasteless, rock hard, calorie wastes. While, no doubt, there are bakeshops all across America that have delicious biscotti, I'm not willing to take the chance. I feel the same way about chocolate layer cake -- it's often dry and simply disappointing.

I've made biscotti before, from a Cooking Light recipe that a friend made several years ago. Not too bad. But with a constant influx of recipes, biscotti never made it into the permanent rotation. Under the wire, on Tuesday night (hence the Wednesday night post) I decided to whip up a batch of Lenox Almond Biscotti. I roughly divided my batter in half before adding black pepper to one batch and orange rind, cointreau flambeed orange flavored dried cranberries (from TJ's) and almond extract to the other.

After I cut them, I experienced similar problems to other TWD bakers. After multiple tries and some newly-half sized biscotti, I gave up on the marching soldiers baking technique, lay the biscotti on their sides and moved on. All in all, these were delicious. I'd add more pepper than the eyeball that I used. My best intentions called for dipping the fruit ones in dark chocolate. By the time I was ready to do that this afternoon, there were too few remaining to make it worthwhile. Next time? Yes... these will make the rotation for a while at least.