Almond Biscotti: Quaresimale

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I've made biscotti before and am always on the lookout for a recipe for classic Italian almond biscotti. But this recipe was wrong from the beginning. I thought 3 Tbsp of vanilla must be a typo so reduced it to one Tbsp, which was plenty. I got into trouble when I tried to combine ingredients as directed. Clearly the butter should have been cut in before the almonds, which jammed and broke in my stand mixer. The resulting dough was quite wet, and the two logs were raw in the middle even after longer cooking lightly browned the crust. I managed to cut them with a good bread knife without too much damage and return to the oven. As they did not cook in the prescribed time, I lowered the oven temp and continued until fully cooked. The results were not as pretty as I would have liked, but still tasty, hard and brittle in traditional Italian style. This recipe needs a lot of improvement.

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While it's true that slicing through whole almonds is difficult, it's needn't be a major problem.
First, and most important, allow the loaf to cool, completely, before trying to slice it. This is true for any biscotti recipe, but even more for this one. Next, use a long, serrated knife. A bread knife is good. When you slice the loaf, use your other hand to cup and support the loaf. Be sure to SLICE, not press the knife into the loaf. Use a sawing motion, slicing steadily.

Some crumbling is inevitable. But, I've found the old trick of simply pressing the slice back together works especially well with this recipe. You can often rescue a broken piece this way and decide if the finished biscotti looks good enough to serve when it's done finished it's second baking. If not, you have something for the cook or can make crumbs from it, which are good on ice cream, as almost all biscotti crumbs are.

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I have been making biscotti for decades and I agree with others that this is a seriously flawed recipe. Gummy, impossible to cut thru whole almonds without ripping the biscotti apart. Really Scialo Bros? where you just not paying attention or did you just not want to share your REAL recipe? Not worth the effort. Try another recipe.

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Very easy very tasty, but using whole almonds makes it very hard to cut. Have lots o little pieces. That's all I would change. Pat. New Mexico.

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They were easy to make and really good. Instead of 3tsp of Vanilla, I DID 2tsp of Almond extrac and 1 tsp vanilla. They were good.

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RATE THIS RECIPE 4 STARS/ TO THE UNINIATED...QUARESIMALE BISCOTTI ARE SUPPOSED TO BE HARD AND CRUNCHY...EXCELLENT FOR DUNKING IN COFFEE OR EAT THEM AS THEY ARE. IF ITS SOFT THEN IT IS NOT A "QUARESIMALE"

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This recipe is great, but I started tweaking it to make it less sweet and make it taste more "biscotti-like." Here are some of the successful changes that I made:
1. I reduced each of the sugars down to 3/4 of a cup
2. Used sliced, toasted almonds
3. Replaced one of the tablespoons of vanilla with a tablespoon of almond extract
4. If you want the biscotti browned, keep the oven at 350 for the second bake and turn them over when one side is brown. Takes about 10 minutes, but keep an eye on them.

**For a sugar-free alternative (I made these for my aunt who is diabetic, I replaced the white sugar with 3/4 cup sugar-substitute suitable for baking (make sure it replaces at a 1:1 ratio and the brown sugar with a mixture of 3/4 sugar-substitute and 3 tablespoons of sugar-free breakfast syrup (this is a 1 cup sugar substitute to 1/4 cup syrup mixture; 1/ cup = 4 tablespoons. My aunt was very pleased with them and even my mom and grandmother enjoyed them, as well.

Enjoy!

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It was a hit! : Very easy to make! Thank you! :

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A Scialo Bro Almond Biscotti recipe was on this site back in 2000, but I see it has been removed from the site. This one should be removed too. I've been making biscotti successfully for over 25 years, and something is terribly wrong with these Scialo recipes. Some of the comments reflect it.

Too much sugar, and where's the levening...either baking soda or powder? I've altered the recipe so much to make it work that it no longer resembles the original, but I did try the original to the letter, and had to trash the entire thing.

It's almost like the neighbor who gave you a favorite recipe but deliberately left out something (or put something too much in just to mess with your head.

Like I said...I've been making biscotti for 25 years. This one is a loser.

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This is my favorite bakery in RI. I have moved away now and when I make these, I can almost smell the bakery and I feel like I had to drive around for a half an hour to find a parking spot. The biscotti is usually soft in the middle when I cut it, I then put the pieces on their side and bake another 10 minutes. They are still chewy that day, but the next they are hard and delicious. (if you don't put them in something airtight, they can get extremely hard Use all the vanilla and almonds - it makes the cookie. Everyone who has had these loves them - and when I made them in Providence, people did not believe that I did not buy them and try to pass them off as mine! Scialo's sells them plain and dipped in chocolate. They make me so very happy, wonderfull in coffee.