Biscotti

Simple biscotti recipe can sound differently with just a small addition of weird for this kind of bakery ingredient - banana. Banana makes the dough a little softer inside, while outside cookies still stays crunchy. I was a little worried how dried cranberry will compliment banana flavored dough, but the result was amazing. And also you can utilize soft bananas.
This recipe is adopted from one of Russian cooking journals. And had a huge success with my lovely fiancé.

Ingredients for 12 biscotti’s:

2 cups (280 g.) all-purpose flour
½ cup (140 g.) white granulated sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
Pinch of salt
2 soft bananas
1 Tbsp. olive (or any other vegetable) oil
1 tsp. vanilla essence
1/2 - 1 tsp. almond essence
1 large egg
1 cup blanched almonds, coarsely chopped
½ cup dry cranberry


Method:

Preheat oven to 350F (175C). I do not have a good oven, so guessing that it was the right temperature.
Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl – flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.
In separate bowl puree bananas using food processor or just with a fork. Add egg, vanilla and almond essences and mix well.
Add banana mix to the flour, mix well until dough will be smooth. Add almonds and cranberries.
Line baking tray with baking sheet. Pour the dough onto the sheet and form into rectangular shape 25 cm by 15 cm. Be careful on this one, because the dough will be very sticky and difficult to form, form the dough with wet hands or by helping with spatula or spoons.
Place baking tray in preheated oven and bake around 25 min or until golden color.
Take out baked loaf from the oven to cool slightly (for approximately 10min) and then cut into long stripes 0,8-1 cm thick.
Place the stripes back onto baking sheet and bake in the oven on lower heat, approximately 300 F (150C) for 15 min or so.
Then turn biscotti’s to the other side so they can get browned and crunchy from both sides – keep in the oven another 15 min.
The time of “drying” biscotti’s can differ depending on how crunchy you like them. If you like softer, than keep them less than 15 min.

Bon Appeti!

PS i like to dip them in black coffee.