Italia!

I started reading eat, love, pray the other day which means I've been thinking about Italy nonstop since, especially Italian food...well mostly gelato and pizza because that's what she talks about...  but also just Italy in general or anywhere that's warm and has an abundance of of foreign boys and delicious eats. Anyways, since I am still stuck here in Pennsylvania where there's all this white stuff on the ground, I decided to make biscotti. Not really the same but we do what we can. A quick lesson on biscotti: they came from the Italian city of Prato, is always traditionally made with almonds, and the word is actually plural version for the word biscotto (so don't be adding any s's to your biscotti).

But first a quick update! As promised, ice cream sandwiches!

Ook. on to the Biscotti.
adapted from Smitten Kitchen's almond biscotti. yields ~ 2 dozen (her recipe here)

Ingredients:
3 cups of flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1 stick of unsalted butter, melted
3 large eggs
1 tbsp orange liqueur
1 tbsp orange zest
1 cup of chopped almonds

mix melted butter, sugar, eggs, orange zest and orange liquor 

sift dry ingredients: flour, salt & baking powder and add by batches to wet ingredients. 

mix mix mix until dough forms.

Form into 13" x 5" x .5" logs (length, width and thickness). Bake in oven at 350 for 20 minutes. Take out of the oven and cool for 25 minute

Cut into 1 inch wide slices, flip over on its side, and bake for another 12 minutes.

The first time I saw someone make biscotti was Giada on the Food Network, and she dipped hers into white chocolate...so naturally, I had to dip my biscotti into chocolate too.

And because chocolate wasn't enough (and I had chopped nuts left over), I also added in nuts. 

Unfortunately I started running out of chocolate, I drizzled the rest over the remaining half. 

Happy Eating!