Cherry and Almond Biscotti

I've been wanting to make biscotti for ages, but have never got round to it, until today!  I guess I thought that it took ages and that it wouldn't really be worth it when you can buy such lovely ones in fancy coffee shops, how wrong was I!

Give these a go, they're really yummy and work out so much cheaper than those you get in the previously mentioned coffee shops!

Ingredients

2 Eggs
150g caster sugar
Grated zest of 1 orange
250g plain flour
1 tsp. baking powder
100g dried cherries
150g whole almonds

Pre heat the oven and line a baking tray with baking parchment.

Whisk together the eggs and the sugar until they are very fluffy and ribbons of mixture are left behind when you lift the beaters out.

Beat in the orange zest.

Mix together the flour and baking powder and then carefully fold into egg and sugar mixture.

Fold in the cherries and almonds.

Flour the worktop well and tip out the dough, it will be quite sticky and wet so make sure you have extra flour to hand!

Shape into a long flattish log shape and then transfer to the prepared baking sheet.  You will probably need to re shape the dough when its on the baking tray as it will stretch a bit when you pick it up.

Bake in the pre heated oven for 30-40 minutes.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 5 minutes, then slice into pieces about 1 cm thick and place back on the baking tray.  Bake again for 10 minutes, turn them over and bake for another 10 minutes.

Cool completely on a wire rack and store in an air tight container.



These look amazing gift wrapped in a cellophane bag, tied with ribbon and given as a Christmas pressie!

P.s I made 2 batches of these, the second had 150g roasted whole hazelnuts and 100g dark chocolate chips instead, which also worked really well, we just can't decide which are our faves!

Enjoy!

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