Biscotti: A Romance Story

Love during war? Through sickness? Lost love, found again after surviving trials and tribulations across sea and land?

Not quite so dramatic, but a tale of two high school sweethearts who went to different colleges....and biscotti.

I went to the College of the Big Buff Bird, and he went to the College of Corn Fields. The two colleges were hundreds and hundreds of miles apart. We ended up only seeing each other at most every half year, usually involving him making multi-legged plane trips to see me. In between those few-and-far-between visits, I wanted to send care packages to the boyfriend at the College of Corn Fields, something that would survive the shipping process and not go stale.

Biscotti sounded like a good idea. I'd always liked the (expensive) ones in the coffee shops, so I figured it'd be good to see if I could make good ones at home. And they were dry and hard to begin with, so they could withstand some battering in the mail.

I've been collecting (mostly baking) recipes since I was in high school, and in college with the discovery of Food Network and Allrecipes.com, that habit stayed quite strongly alive. Whenever I went home for a weekend or holiday, I pulled out the ol' recipe collection and started to experiment a bit with the baking.

I started out with recipes I'd copied in high school from Cookies Unlimited by Nick Malgieri. Classic Tuscan Cantuccini, Double Chocolate Biscotti, and (my favorite) one that is called "Dead Men's Bones" in Swiss German--totebeinli--an almond biscotti with notes of lemon and cinnamon.

I guess I must have a morbid sense of humor to send those last ones to a boyfriend.

But they were delicious, easy enough to make for a beginner baker like myself at that point, and he always received them intact. He'd ration them out and only eat a couple each morning with his coffee, but within a few weeks, he'd run out...until the next batch a few months later. I don't think he ever shared a single piece with anyone.


Now that we're no longer long distance, shipping stability isn't a consideration anymore, but I still try to make a batch for him to eat with his morning coffee about once every several months.

Biscotti hold a special place in our hearts--not because they are easy to make, easy to adapt to your own tastes, and keep very well at room temperature for up to weeks, or just simply delicious...all of which they are--but because of the memory of how special it was for me to send something to him, and how special it was for him to receive them from me and enjoy them, and how they were a surrogate for us being able to spend time together in person eating cookies.

But now we can eat them together. Every day.

And these Triple Ginger Biscotti with Pecans and Dark Chocolate, adapted from Tish Boyle's The Good Cookie, give us an especially delicious means through which to build new biscotti memories together.


They are decidedly gingery, but not obnoxiously so. If you like gingerbread or gingersnaps, you'll love these. They are reminiscent of those holiday treats but crispy, have a barely buttery dough and crunchy buttery pecans, and are sweetly crisp and clean without the heavy molasses flavor. The ginger in the dough is sweet, and the crystallized ginger pops with flavor in your mouth when you chew on a piece. My variation upon the original recipe is to add the dark chocolate chips. Because almost everything tastes better with a little bit of chocolate.


Triple Ginger Biscotti with Pecans and Dark Chocolate (Adapted from The Good Cookie by Tish Boyle)

Ingredients:
1 & 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt
Pinch of freshly ground black pepper

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon peeled and finely grated fresh ginger (tip: if you don't use fresh ginger often, buy a chunk, put it in a plastic bag, and freeze it. Just hack off a piece as you need it)

1/3 cup chopped crystallized ginger
1/3 cup dark (60% Cacao) chocolate chips (optional, my addition)
1 cup pecans

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking sheet.

In a large bowl, sift together the dry ingredients: flour, ground ginger, salt, pepper, baking powder. Whisk to mix evenly. Set aside.

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar at medium speed for about 1 minute until blended. Beat in one egg at a time, mixing well after each egg and scraping down the sides of the bowl before adding the next one. Beat in the fresh grated ginger and vanilla extract. Reduce speed to low and mix in the dry ingredients gently until just blended. Stir in the chopped crystallized ginger and pecans and chocolate chips (if using) until just mixed in.

Flour a work surface generously and scrape the cookie dough out in a pile. Shape into a disk and divide in half, sprinkling flour over the surface of the dough as needed to keep it from sticking to your hands or the board. Shape each piece into a 12-inch log (I find rolling gently to be the easiest way to lengthen the dough). Transfer the logs of dough onto your prepared baking sheet and place them at least 3 inches apart. Flatten each log until they are about 2 inches wide. I like to square off the ends to minimize the taper that inevitably happens, but if you don't mind multiple-sized biscotti, just leave it be.

Bake the logs for 35 minutes at 325 degrees, or until the logs are pale brown on top and you notice brown edges. Take pan out of oven and let logs cool for about 10 minutes or until cool enough to handle. Adjust oven to 300 degrees.

Transfer logs to a cutting board using a rubber spatula to loosen them from pan/paper. Take a serrated knife, slice the log into 1/2 inch thick slides. You can cut on the diagonal if you like, but I tend to slice straight horizontally. I also tend to cut the slices using a vertical downward push on the knife, making sure the blade is perpendicular to the cutting board. I find cutting the slices this way tends not to hack off chunks of cookie like a sawing motion does, although it does tend to compress the cookie a little bit.

Transfer the slices back to the baking sheet, arranging them on their sides (cut sides facing up and down). Bake for additional 18-22 minutes. I sometimes take them out half way and flip them, but it isn't really necessary unless you don't want them to turn brown before they crisp up (looks prettier if they don't brown). When they are done, they may be dry on the surface and barely spongy in the center when you press down on one, or they may be completely dry through. They will harden up completely while they cool. Cool completely on wire racks before storing in an airtight container.

Recipe says you can store at room temp for up to a week...we usually keep them for up to a few weeks at RT with no change in taste or texture. If they last that long.