Maui Wowee

A few days ago I found myself extremely bored at my parents' house. Computer-less and banished from the TV room, baking seemed like the perfect solution. I had limited time, so making cookies was the obvious option. However, after the previous week's cookie dough extravaganza (one night I made cookie dough just to eat the cookie dough...), it was clear that whatever I concocted would have to be unappealing in dough form.

In honor of my mother's impending birthday, I decided to make her favorite: biscotti. My personal feelings about biscotti are mixed. While I rarely crave them, there is something very soothing about a rock-hard biscotti dipped in coffee or tea and soaked to softened perfection. Indeed, in my youth I would often make tea just for the sole purpose of biscotti dipping. That said, biscotti are a staple in my mother's diet and their absence is infrequent in Parent-house.

Fortunately, on this particular day, there were no biscotti to be found. Naturally, I, along the with the Big Book of Baking, came to the rescue.

Plain old Biscotti
Adapted from the Big Book of Baking

* 1 3/4 cups flour
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 3/4 cup sugar
* 2 eggs
* zest of 1 orange
* a few handfuls of slivered almonds (whole almonds are better, but one must work with what one's got)

Preheat oven to 350˚ F.

Beat the eggs in a bowl (or don't if you are lazy). Mix with the sugar, along with the orange rind. Combine the with the flour and baking soda until they form a dough. Stir/knead in the almonds.

Divide the dough into two logs and stretch/roll them out until they are a little over 1 inch in diameter.














Bake the logs for about 15-25 minutes on a baking sheet. Note: this part involved some guesswork on my part. The recipe in the Big Book was very blunt with its baking and cooling times, almost leading me to blindly trust when it said to bake the logs for 10 minutes then remove. After 10 minutes, though, the logs were clearly not ready to leave the oven. I poked one with a knife in anticipation of thinly slicing the logs into individual cookies. Rather than gentle resistance but ultimate submission from the logs, I was met with oozing dough out when I jabbed the log. After about 25 minutes (it took longer because I kept taking the baking sheet out to check for doneness), the logs looked ready for slicing. Let them cool first for 5 minutes.














Use a serrated knife to carefully cut the logs diagonally into 1/2 inch thick slices. Place these almost-biscotti sides down on the baking sheet. Bake for another 15 minutes. Let them cool/dry on the sheet. Dip in your hot liquid of choice.