Roopa
Next in the list of Italian pastries was biscotti! Unlike typical North American biscotti, these were bite sized. Chef Marco commented that biscotti is intended to be enjoyed with a meal, and is not intended to actually be a meal in itself. All I really knew about biscotti was that it is baked twice (which is apparently what the actual translation of biscotti is), so I was surprised at how easy these were to make! These were also my favourite of everything made at pastry school.
INGREDIENTS
- 60 g granulated sugar
- 80 g pecans
- 2 eggs
- 110 g sugar
- 110 g canola oil
- 1 mL vanilla extract
- 1 pinch orange zest
- 200 g pastry flour
- 6 g baking powder
- 1 g cinnamon
DIRECTIONS
- Make a dry caramel from the sugar and add pecans to it when done. Remove from heat and let the pecans cool on a silpat mat.
- When the pecans have cooled, grind them into coarse chunks with a rolling pin.
- Whip the eggs and sugar into a sabayon.
- When the sabayon reaches ribbon stage, mix in the oil, vanilla, and zest.
- Fold in the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and ground pecans.
- Pipe into long strips on a tray, and bake at 350 F until browned.
- Freeze and cut when ready to bake again.
- Bake the second time at 250 F until dry.
Notes:
- Add the sugar bit by bit to the caramel to keep from clumping.
- Once the caramel starts foaming, you have 5 seconds until it burns.
- Make sure you add the oil to the sabayon after the ribbon stage.
- Biscotti gets baked the first time for colour, and the second time for dryness.
- The first baked biscotti can stay in a freezer.
Chateau Gateau 