Sunday, February 5, 2012

NuTty new years resolutions and healthier Biscotti

The idea for this batch of Nutty Biscotti came to me the other day whilst I was on the phone to one of my friends. This friend has a rather significant sweet tooth and is usually the first to put her hand up to sample my desserts so you can only imagine my surprise when she exclaimed "NO JESS,NO MORE DESSERTS! I'M EATING HEALTHY". Those last three words hit me like a slap in the face as I turned to my latest cookbook  "The Biggest Loser FAMILIES" for support. It felt like EVERYONE had decided that a healthier eating plan was going to be there new years resolution and that I had no choice but to turn to this book and bid farewell to my sugary creations forever. I have to be honest though, I bought this cook book for two reasons only, reason #1 it was only $10 and reason #2 I thought it would be jam packed with photos of the hot trainer from the Aussie version of the show. I have since then learnt  to read the title of a book before purchase and never to judge by its cover as now I have 70 pages of practically menopausal women doing yoga and page after page with advice on 'how to raise a healthy family'. On the bright side I must admit the recipes in the book were pretty good and I managed to find a nice Biscotti recipe to bake for my newly healthy friend. I have changed the original around a fair bit, the recipe required dried figs instead of almonds but since I had no figs in the pantry and I'm absolutely obsessed with almonds I used them instead. I have also added in the elderflower syrup and orange zest, you can choose to just use vanilla bean instead of the elder flower if you prefer the taste.

This recipe is pretty good, I must say I enjoyed it a little too much, its meant to serve 24 people, lets just say only about 4 people got to try it after I had finished my "Quality Control Taste Tests". Hope you enjoy it as much as I did and to everyone "eating healthy" this year, I give you two more weeks before you move on back to the dark side..warm,sugary,buttery,creamy,luscious bites of cake ;) 


Elderflower, Almond & Pecan Biscotti






preperation time : 15 min
Cooking time : 40 min
Serves: supposed to serve 24 but only served 5 in my family!


Ingredients

-1/2 cup raw caster sugar ( so excited about having found this,didn't even know they made this stuff!) 

-1 egg
-1 cup plain flour
-1 tbl spoon grated orange zest
-1/3 cup toasted Pecans
-1/3 cup toasted Almonds
-1 tsp Elderflower flavouring 

Method

1- preheat oven to 180 degrees

2- Process the nuts,elder flower and orange zest together in a food processor, leave it to rest about 5 min.












3-beat sugar and egg until thick and pale.

4- add the nut mixture to the eggs and beat on low just till they are combined.

5- knead in the flour to form a sticky dough. Using your hands shape dough to form a log, line a tray with baking paper and flatten the log till about 3cm thick.

6-Bake for around 20min till the outside starts to brown and the log feels firm.

7- Slice the log into slices that are around 1.5 cm thick and return to the oven for another 20 min until they are golden brown.


8- ENJOY!

1 comment:

  1. I am glad you found this recipe amongst the menopausal yoga pics, they look awesome!In fact, I would love to make these to take to work :)

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