TWD #34: Peek-a-Boooo-scotti. I see you…

I love this time of year.

It’s just turning cold (well… cold by California standards) so I am busting out my hoodies and scarves from their under-the-bed-abyss.

Personally my favorite “holiday” is the day after Thanksgiving for the Black Friday sales! HAHA. I get such a thrill from standing in line at 2am with other Black Friday shoppers, barely no sleep, playing cards, drinking coffee and waiting until the door opens at 5am. The adrenaline when you finally get inside is such a rush. People are running and grabbing stuff off the shelves in a mad frenzy. It’s awesome! I’ve got my eye on a laptop this year for T’s xmas gift. Ssshhhh… don’t tell!

T’s favorite holiday is Halloween. (Actually it might be tied with Thanksgiving.) He’s a bit of a movie-aholic. I think it breaks his heart that I am not. I prefer being entertained via my internet than watching Saw 4 (or is it 5 now? Did we really need more than one though?). Of all the genres, he loves scary movies. Since we don’t have kids and we live in an apt that in 6 years has never had one trick-or-treater, we always spend the few weeks leading up to and the night of Halloween watching scary movies. I am not a scary movie person. I scare easily. I don’t like seeing blood gushing out from severed limbs but there are a few that I will watch.

Psycho
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Sleepy Hallow
From Hell
The Village
The Sixth Sense

T’s scary movie list is WAY longer. But the above movies are the only ones I have the stomach for. If I can get caught up in the story and the gore isn’t over the top, I can watch it. If its gory just to be gory, forget it!

Wait what was I suppose to be talking about? There I go off on a tangent again. Talking about Black Friday and scary movies has gotten me all flustered! HAHA. Back to the biscotti, m’kay?

I don’t think I’ve ever had biscotti. Whaaaaat?? But I am not a coffee or tea drinker and I think most biscotti eaters nibble their biscotti with a warm drink right? Needless to say TWD is about baking things out of our comfort zone so I put on my apron and did my baking thang! Thanks to our host, Gretchen from Canela & Comino for choosing this week’s recipe. You can find the full recipe on her blog.

In honor of the upcoming holiday I made my biscotti with some Halloween inspired sprinkles that I found at Macys. Gotta love Martha Stewart at Macys. She thinks of everything for every holiday. Can you imagine what she did with her jail cell? You know she worked it out! *snapsnapsnap*

What I learned this week:
I am getting more and more comfortable reading a recipe and adding my own adaptions. I think that makes baking even more fun! Especially when you can find a reason to add sprinkles!

Lenox Almond Booo-scotti
(Recipe adapted from Dorie Greenspan BFMHTY | photos from me!)

Makes 30 biscotti (I halved the recipe and got 12)

A couple TWD members mentioned they weren’t a fan of the gritty texture of the cornmeal but mine didn’t seem gritty? Maybe I just don’t have as a discriminating biscotti palate? hehe

Does my dough look kinda orange-y? I hope so! I added a little red and yellow coloring gel to the dough to make it more Halloween-y. I probably should have added more b/c its kinda faint. Oh well… next time.

I baked for 20 minutes instead of 15 minutes for the first bake. After cooling for 30 minutes, I baked 15 minutes for 2nd bake, turned off oven and let them cool in the oven. You can see that it spreads alot when you compare the loaf proximity to the words on the silpat. Crazy huh?

I sliced mine kinda thick, about 1 inch. Since I like seeing the almond chunks, I had to take a picture. hehe

Did anyone else think that Dorie’s description of “marching band” meant you stand the biscotti up vertical? I DID?! Good thing fellow TWDer, Annette, explained “…just stand them up on their original bottom from when they were in log form versus laying them down on a cut side.” or I would have try to balance my biscotti on its end with total failure. Balance is not my strong suit. Since TWD head baker, Laurie, confirmed that her interpretation was the same, I went with it. Two TWDers can’t be wrong, right? HAHA

I used 1/2 semi-sweet and 1/2 bittersweet chocolate melted via microwave in a cup. After I dipped one end of biscotti in chocolate, I garnished with various Halloween sprinkles (white ghosts, orange pumpkins, multicolor sprinkles)

Let chocolate set in refrigerator about 1 hour.

ENJOY!

Husband rating: A+
He use to work in a coffee shop in college so he knows biscotti. He raved about it in the morning with his coffee and said I have to make it for him every morning. Yeah right!? haha.

Wifey rating: A
I am not a coffee drinker so T says I didn’t get the full experience but I liked it with or without coffee. It was like a dry almond cookie. I could play with so many different flavors with this recipe. I love that.

Next week: Pumpkin Muffins page 13