Almond Cherry Biscotti

Twice baked and very crunchy, these biscotti are perfect with coffee or tea.

I do love almonds, as some of you may already know. I also love biscotti, so today I decided to make some with almonds and, since cherries are a natural match for almonds I decided to add some in too.

For my cherries I used glace cherries, which I washed to remove the syrup and then dried them.

To add even more flavour I toasted the almonds for a short while too, until their aroma started to fill the kitchen and they coloured slightly.

Biscotti are so easy to make. They are ‘double baked-, meaning that they are baked once and then they are sliced and the slices are baked again until they have become very hard and dry.  The resultant biscotti are then eaten, usually dipped into coffee or tea, though they can just be eaten as a very, very, crunchy biscuit if you like.

Mine turned out very well indeed.  The intense almond flavour, aided by a little almond extract was perfect and the cherries were very tasty too.

The biscotti can be stored in an airtight container for about a week.  If they didn’t have cherries in, which are still soft, they could be stored for much longer and still be good to eat.

Biscotti are perfect for adapting to flavour preferences.  I have many on this blog, including Chocolate & Hazelnut Biscotti.

Ingredients:

• 260g(1 2/3 cpu – 1tbsp) plain flour(based on scooping packed flour into 250ml cup)
• 3 medium eggs(large in USA)
• 100g(2/3 cup) almonds, toasted and roughly chopped
• 100g(2/3 cup) glace cherries chopped in half
• 150g(3/4 cup) caster or granulated sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan-350F.
2. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
3. Place the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar into a large bowl and stir to combine.
4. Beat the eggs with the vanilla and almond extracts and add to the dry mixture.
5. Stir around until a sticky dough is formed.
6. Turn out onto a floured surface and form the dough into a disc.
7. Divide into 2 equal parts.
8. Shape each part into a log of about 7 inches(18cm) and place on the baking tray, leaving a good gap between each.
9. Flatten each log until they have a width of about 4 inches(10cm).
10. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes, then remove and allow to cool for 15 minutes.
11. Slice each log, diagonally, into slices of between 1/2 and 3/4 inch.
12. Place each slice on the baking tray with one cut side downwards.
13. Bake in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes then turn the slices over and bake for another 10 minutes.
14. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.