Shirl's Biscotti And Me

by Marjan
One of our most requested and beloved posts is Shirl's biscotti recipe: My Chocolate & Almond Biscotti Over Me. If you haven't tried it yet, STOP everything and make it today because it is really a beautifully written post and recipe. Shirl has treated me to her delicate, well prepared and scrumptious biscotti on a couple of special occasions. She bakes them to perfection and honestly up until this point, I was intimidated to make them on my own. But since I was going through serious withdrawals of her biscotti, I had to try them baking them for myself. Glad I did! Her recipe is meticulous and easy to follow, rendering delicate, scrumptious, perfect biscotti.

Original Recipe

One of my favorite local coffee shops in La Jolla San Diego is Bird Rock; for the past couple of years, they have been selling chocolate biscotti to die for! Having been a fan of their coffee for almost ten years, now I am huge fan of their biscotti as well. Inspired, I modified Shirl's recipe, by substituting 4 oz. of flour for cocoa and toasted hazelnut instead of almonds. Of course, nothing beats Shirl's original classic recipe, but to satisfy my chocolate and hazelnut craving, I must admit it turned out pretty awesome and worthy of sharing it with you.

Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti 

Chocolate and hazelnut are my two favorite combination of flavors during autumn and winter months. Last year, I shared with you my Nutella inspired rolled cake with cocoa and hazelnut, this year these great flavors ended up in my biscotti! Thanks Shirl for always inspiring.
Hope you enjoy these scrumptious bites as much as I do!

The recipe below is Shirl's recipe with modification of chocolate and hazelnut.

Ingredients:

6 oz All-Purpose Flour
4 oz Cocoa Powder

1 ½ Teaspoons Baking Powder

½ Teaspoon Salt

4 oz Unsalted Butter, still cool but no longer rock hard

8 oz (225 g) Granulated Sugar

2 Large Eggs

2/3 Cup Chopped Toasted Hazelnut

1. Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper. Position racks in the center and top third of oven.  Preheat to 300F (150C).
2. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder, and salt together.  Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until just combined.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time.  Add flour mixture.  Mix well.  You could use a hand mixer up to this point.  Now, switch to a strong spatula, mix in hazelnut until well-distributed.
4. Lightly flour your work surface, divide the dough in half.  Using your hands, roll each piece of dough into log shape about 14” (35cm) long.  Place one log on each cookie sheet.
5. Bake, switching the cookie sheets from top to bottom and front to back after 45 minutes, until the logs are firm to touch, approximately 1 ½ hours.  Keep oven on.
6. Remove cookie sheets from the oven.  Slide the parchment paper with the baked logs onto a cutting board.  While still hot, cut the baked logs with a serrated knife into slices of just under 3/4” (2 cm) thick.  Slide the parchment paper with the cut cookies back onto the cookie sheets.  Arrange and lay the cookies flat.
7. Bake for additional 10 minutes.  Transfer to wire cooling racks. Cool completely before storing in airtight container.   

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