Tuesday, December 15, 2009

KGO Cookie Contest: Lemon Walnut Anise Biscotti

My biscotti did not get selected for the finals of the KGO cookie contest, unfortunately. I listened to part of the broadcast on Saturday and it seemed like a lot of the recipes were pretty unusual, so I felt better about not being selected. Here's the link to all the recipes that made it to the finals. If you make any of them I expect a full report! When I looked at the recipes I realized that the second recipe from the top is pretty much the same as my biscotti recipe, except it contains lemon rind/juice and walnuts instead of almonds. Everything else is pretty similar. However I am not a cute little 90 year old Swiss grandma who made these for the workers at a winery, I'm just a boring chemist who has a food blog.
Anyway, since I usually have to make multiple batches of biscotti this time of year, I decided to try the lemon anise walnut variation. Since the recipe is virtually the same, there's not much to report about the prep. I tweaked the recipe every so slightly by adding some vodka along with the lemon juice to get the right dough consistency. The dough didn't taste as good as my usual recipe - the almond extract/anise extract/brandy in mine do make for a very tasty dough, although the flavors get muted somewhat after baking.
The biscotti smelled nice and lemony as they baked. I took the logs out of the oven and let them cool, then sliced them and did the second baking. Since walnuts are softer than almonds, they were easier to slice cleanly. The once-baked cookies were very tasty, with a delicate lemon/butter/walnut flavor. I couldn't really taste the anise. After the second baking, the biscotti were darker than my usual ones, either from the lemon zest of the walnuts, or both.
I'm totally biased, but the biscotti were not as good as the almond-anise ones.

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