TEFL Adventures: How to bake homemade Biscotti!

Vanilla Pistachio Biscotti

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, my summer vacation is slowly drawing to a close. My school technically opens its doors in three days, which will commence a week's worth of meetings where we'll discuss some of the plans for the new school year and, even more importantly, what will happen on the educational trips for the students, which will start the following week. 10th grade will go to Northern Siberia while 5th and 7th grade go to Crimea.

Before I left to spend a couple weeks of my vacation in the United States, I bought an oven. Since I've returned, I've done my best to put it to good use by trying to perfect homemade versions of different baked goods that I really enjoy, such as biscotti.

Biscotti, which translates into English as 'twice-cooked,' is an Italian cookie that is, well, twice cooked. The first time I ever tried biscotti was at King Arthur Flour's, and since that time, I did my best to buy a couple every time I passed the cafe in Baker Library. And because I haven't found biscotti for sale here in St. Petersburg, I decided to try my hand at baking my own.

Before I explain the recipe that I used, there's an additional reason behind my increase in baking, aside from wanting to use the oven I bought. In Russia, for one's birthday, it's common practice for that person to celebrate his or her birthday with colleagues. It's a societal norm that I wasn't quite aware of when my birthday rolled around last year, so I found myself buying a small cake and some fruit at the last second. This year, however, I want to make a better impression by bringing some homemade items. Biscotti, I believe, is a good option since it's usually not too sweet, and I can pretty it a couple days beforehand so that I'm not baking everything the night before my birthday.

As I've started baking, here's a piece of advice for Americans moving to a foreign country that doesn't use 'cups' as a measuring system. If you enjoy cooking or baking and plan on doing so quite often, you might want to consider bringing your own measuring cups for dry ingredients. I forgot to do this, and since I don't have a food scale to measure grams, I find myself measuring out cups of flour or sugar by using a tablespoon. So buy a measuring cup set to make life a little easier.

Chocolate Biscotti

So far, I've baked two types of biscotti (Vanilla Pistachio & Chocolate) and the people who have tried both types liked both. I enjoyed both as well, but I found that the chocolate biscotti was tastier. Anyways, I'll provide the basic recipe I used and highlight the minor differences for each.

Biscotti Recipe

• Flour - 24 tablespoons (1.5 cups)
• Sugar - 12 tablespoons (2/3 cup)
• Baking powder - 1/2 teaspoon 
• Vanilla - 1.5 teaspoons 
• Salt - 1/3 teaspoon
• Eggs - 2 eggs
• Butter - 1/3 cup, softened
• Sugar - A pinch to sprinkle on top, optional
• Cinnamon - A pinch to sprinkle on top, optional
• For the version with nuts, one cup of pistachios
• For the version with chocolate, 2 heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder and 25 grams of a chocolate bar, chopped

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F (190 degrees C). Spread a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet. If you're using nuts, roast them in the oven for 10ish minutes. If they're already roasted, you're ready for the next step.
2. Mix your dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder) together. If you're making chocolate biscotti, mix in your cocoa powder and chopped chocolate bar.
3. Cream together the sugar and butter. Once it's smooth, add the eggs and vanilla extra. Continue until the mixture is smooth again.
4. Mix the dry and wet ingredients together. If you're using nuts, add the nuts once the dry and wet ingredients are mixed well. *Note - I used a rubber spatula for this step*
5. Heavy flour a cutting board or your country to prevent sticking and dump the dough onto the flour. Rub flour onto your hands as well. Roll the dough into a rough 'log.' If you want cookies with less width, divide the dough into two logs, place on the baking sheet and gently flatten to your desired height. For wider cookies, don't divide the dough, place the log onto the baking sheet and gently flatten the log to your desired height. Sprinkle the pinches of cinnamon and sugar on top of the log(s).
6. Bake until the log(s) are firm, but not hard, near the center, which should take about 37 minutes. If you are baking two logs, rotate the baking sheet at the midway point so that both logs cook evenly.
7. Once the logs are done, pull them out and let them cool for a couple minutes until they are safe enough to handle. Move them to a cutting board and slice them about .75-1 inch thick (you can either do a straight cut or diagonal cut depending on what aesthetic you prefer). 
8. Place the cookie slices on their side onto the baking sheets. Put the slices into the oven for another 3-to-7 minutes, depending on how crunch you like your biscotti (Longer means crunchier. I did mine for four minutes). Take the cookies out, flip them onto the other side and bake for the same amount of time.
9. Let them cool as it will allow them to harden. Once cool, enjoy them with milk, coffee or tea!

If you have any questions, write them in the comments section below and I'll respond when I can. Otherwise, good luck! :)