Biscotti! Even the word brings fragrant thoughts to mind. A simple coffee at an open air cafe near the coliseum in Rome, a small trattoria in Milan, a warm mensa near the Spanish Steps. Ah, Italia!!! According to Wikipedia, “The word “biscotti” in Italian is the plural form of biscotto, which applies to any type of biscuit, and originates from the medieval Latin word biscoctus, meaning “twice-baked”: it defined biscuits baked twice in the oven, so they could be stored for long periods of time, which was particularly useful during journeys and wars. Through Middle French, the word was imported into the English language as “biscuit”.

So this week we baked Italian for TWD. Dorie’s recipe was very easy and gave us a tasty, sweet, crispy cookie. I have tried Biscotti before and didn’t care for the results. But this one was easy and quite tasty. Thank you, Gretchen, of Canela & Comino for this recipe which is on her site.

I didn’t have much time so this time I only made 1/2 batch. They were very simple, just spiced with cardamom – one of my favorite spices. I thought of making chai spiced biscotti, but I just didn’t have time to process the tea mix for the cookies. But since cardamom is one of the spices, it worked out fine. I really didn’t think this would turn out to be biscotti. My ‘loaf’ was not bad, but it ‘flattened’ out in the oven quite a bit. But it rose again and made the end result just the right size. This is one recipe I will definitely use again. With choco chips, or maybe herbs d’ Provence, or possibly Italian seasoning. As Dorie says, the possibilities are endless.

Visit the other bakers and see their results.

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