Dried figs: I'm obsessed. The greenish kind on one of our fig trees are turning yellow and fat, but they're few and far between at this point. Dried figs, at least, are always plentiful.
Recently, I was trying to think of a dessert to go with grilled pizza on the 4th, something a little Italian but not made with any heavy cream, which seems too cloying in the heat. I made half of these cookie-like, and the other half hard like traditional twice-baked biscottti for later with espresso.
Calimyrna and Black Mission Fig Biscotti
1/2 cup almonds
1/2 cup dried black mission figs
1/2 cup dried golden calimyrna figs
2 eggs (duck eggs are great here if available)
1/3 cup cane sugar
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Next, finely chop the almonds and roughly chop the figs. Set both aside. Whisk the eggs and sugars together for 3-5 minutes until creamy. Add vanilla.
In a different bowl, whisk the dry ingredients: baking powder, salt, all-purpose flour, and whole wheat flour. Combine wet and dry ingredients so that they come together, but don't over-mix. Add in the almonds and figs. (Mixture will be very dry; you can add a tablespoon of water if needed.)
Place dough on a floured surface, and with flour-dusted hands, shape it into a loaf about five inches wide and one inch tall. Bake for 15 minutes. Let it cool a bit and then use a knife coated in flour to cut the biscotti into slices about an inch wide. Place pieces back onto the cookie sheet. Cook for another 15 minutes until golden brown for a harder biscotti. When they cool, sprinkle them with powdered sugar on one side.
Melissa's gonna try this one!
ReplyDeleteum, this is really really wet. like impossible to cut it without baking it first. Is less than 1 c of flour accurate? I'm going to try to bake it, then cut it, then bake it again.
ReplyDeletefollowed the recipe to a T with the exception of the figs- I used my dried backyard figs instead. The dough was very wet. I added another 1/3 c of ww pastry flour and it was still too wet to cut with a knife once shaped into the loaf. Since I shaped it on a floured silpat, I slid it into the oven for 10 min, let it cool 5 min, cut into slices, and cooked another 10 minutes. It's really really good, but maybe a touch sweeter than I'd make if I were to make it again.
ReplyDeleteGood point -- I think it should read cook once as a full loaf then cut and cook again! Thank you so much for catching it.
ReplyDeleteTCV
Looks good- I'd get someone else to test it, too, and make sure that they didn't have to add an additional 1/3 c flour to get it to adhere. With the amounts stated, I had batter the consistency of pancake batter.
ReplyDeleteI think the wife is going to make these for us over the weekend.
ReplyDelete