Christmas count down…22 – First of Advent

by soffiagudrun

Today I officially start doing what ever I do for Christmas.  I am not the over excited x-mas kid but I do enjoy the Christmas lights, occasional song, baking and everything jolly seasonal thing I do with my little girl, like opening the advent calendar every morning, this being her first chocolate advent calendar and the first Christmas she is old enough to have fun with what ever we do.

Today I did a little baking. I really like Biscotti, I find them some how very sophisticated cookies and I like saying Biscotti, feels like I´m Sophia Loren, all dress up and looking lovely eating Biscotti and drinking vino rosso : )

I am giving you the recipe I use for making Biscotti.  I really like this recipe because I am a big fan of almonds, hazelnuts and 70% chocolate.  These go well either with my morning tea or my afternoon glass of red wine. Then you can make an extra batch to give to someone nice : )

Biscotti with hazelnuts and almonds

• 100 g hazelnuts (I used flakes)
• 100 g almonds (flakes or whole)
• 120 g 70% chocolate
• 210 g brown sugar
• 230 g flour
• 30 g cocoa
• 4 g instant espresso (optional)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 150°c (300 °f)

Cut the chocolate and mix it with the brown sugar in a food processor until it´s very fine.

Whisk together flour, cocoa, instant espresso, baking soda and salt.

Use the food processor or an electric mixer to beat the eggs and vanilla extract, add it to the brown sugar mix.

Add nuts and mix a little.

Put some flour on the table so the dough doesn´t stick and make two logs out of the dough, each one about 25 cm long and 5 cm wide. Put them on a baking sheet and bake for about 40 minutes.

Take it out, let cool for 10 minutes. Slice each log in 2 cm slices. Put them back on the baking sheet and in the oven for 15 minutes each side.

Cool down before serving.

Here you find the video on how to make these. They are good.  They talk about roasting the nuts, I didn´t do that.

Now let´s open nr 2.  We will be opening number 24 before we know it hah!