my barista's biscotti

My barista (yes I have my own baristas-that's right more than one, jealous???) not only does he make the best coffee in the world and I will stand by that comment, he also makes delicious biscottis to go with my coffee... I know I'm spoilt!! Nothing beats the crunchy texture of these twice baked Italian cookies. Beautiful on its own... even better dunked in your espresso. So when I was looking for a recipe I knew the guy to go to.

Almond Biscotti
Kindly donated by my barista

1 cup plain flour
1 cup self raising flour
1 cup caster sugar
1 cup whole raw almonds
3 eggs
3 tsp honey/golden syrup
1 tsp mixed spice (I didn't have any in my cupboard so I replaced it with cinnamon)
40g melted butter



Preheat oven to 170Cº. Sift the flours into bowl, add everything else and mix.

Shape into two logs, roughly 10 x 20cm on baking tray (you can make them any size you want). Be sure to wet your hands when you make the logs - it's quite a dry/sticky mixture and otherwise becomes annoying to handle.

Bake for 30-35mins (I found that my logs *see image above* were a little too big, as I wanted mine to be bite size so I cut them in half after they were baked). Let it cool completely and reduce oven to 150Cº. Once the log has cooled slice them as thin as you like. If they are still warm the log are going to be too soft and crumbly and will fall apart when you try to cut it.

Put cut biscotti back onto tray and cook another 15mins or until crisp.


*Suggestions: you can do a chocolate and pistachio version, just swap the almonds for pistachios and the 1 cup plain flour for 3/4 cup plain flour + 1/4 cup good cocoa (and remove the mixed spice).