Directions: |
Directions:This mix is dryer than Fran’s and mails better.
This works best if dough is prepared in advance and chilled. Overnight is good so you can clean up and just bake the next day, but a couple of hours is ok.
I like to add nuts and dried fruit and maybe zest of an orange or lemon, but it’s not necessary.
Almonds are traditional.
1 cup chopped nuts & dried fruit, more is ok too. Chop these up pretty well so you can cut the biscotti later with out tearing them up. But not so small you can’t taste or see them.
(i.e., blueberry and almond; cranberry & walnut; pecan & cherry; apricots, dates)
Put in a small bowl. Mix with 2T Wild Turkey (or other hard liquor or brandy on hand)
Pat it down and set it aside while getting other stuff together.
Pour 1T Wild Turkey into shot glass and toast the ancestors.
In a large enough bowl, combine:
2 ½ cups sifted flour,
2 teaspoons baking powder,
¼ teaspoon salt,
1 T anise seed,
Add the chopped nuts & dried fruit.
In another bowl, combine:
4 large eggs, beaten with
1 cup sugar;
Add ¼ -½ teaspoon anise oil - Some people like more or less anise. I like more, ½ teaspoon
Add ¼ cup melted butter (margarine is in the 50’s recipe).
Make a crater in the drys. Add wets to crater. Mix from center to edge with stiff spatula or wood spoon, spiral like a galaxy. This is a sticky mixture. When you can ball it, move it to dusted bowl, cover bowl with damp cloth not touching dough. Refrigerate. This dough has to rest and chill.
You will need at least two cookie sheets to be efficient with the rotating sheets and tasks. Heat oven to 380. Every oven bakes different. Adjust as needed. Cut your ball into four pieces, maybe six. Roll on floured surface into broomstick-thick logs. Keep waiting dough in fridge. Put two logs on a Crisco-greased cookie sheet. Bake 10 minutes or so, till cooked through (tan and firm on top). Remove from oven. When just cool enough, carefully move to cutting board. Cut diagonally with clean, thin, sharp blade or serrated knife. Return pieces, set on side, to sheet.
Return sheet to oven till bottom is browned. Remove from oven, then turn all the pieces over and return to oven for a few minutes till golden on both sides. (That is three times in the oven per sheet, each time shorter than the previous). |
This recipe for Aunt Jean’s Anisette (biscotti) is from