Instead of saying that I do this occasionally, I’ll be honest and say that I do this often, more so than necessary. Whenever, I walk into the grocery store, I’ll invariably stumble upon some ingredient that will pique my curiosity and of course, I’ll end up picking it without really giving much thought to what I would/could do with it. This is exactly what happened when I saw a bag of these freeze-dried raspberries at the store last week, I just had to have them!
Eaten straight up, they can be quite tart! However, I still had a bag of dried berries to deal with. For a while, I’ve been wanting to try baking berry flavored biscotti. The problem was the liquid content, biscotti needs to be dry and crisp, and fresh berries would be too moist and they would reduce the shelf-life of the cookie. But these freeze-dried raspberries could avoid all of these complications!
There I was sifting flour and mixing a batch of biscotti batter. The batter got colorful while I folded in the crunchy raspberries with bits of dark chocolate and walnuts. Baking biscotti is fun, you get to do it twice! You can cut the loaves to any thickness you desire, I normally waiver between 3/8 to an inch, just make sure you use a sharp serrated knife to get a clean cut. This to me, is fateful perfection; chocolate, raspberries and walnuts wrapped in whole-wheat flour all of which would end up getting dunked in hot tea or coffee at some point over the next few days.
chocolate, raspberry and walnut whole-wheat biscotti
yields: about 40-46 cookies
ingredients
2 1/4 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup packed brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup freeze-dried raspberries
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (58.5% cacao)
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a mixing bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, and salt and keep aside.
3. Using an electric mixer, whisk the sugar, eggs and vanilla on medium speed until light yellow. Add the sifted dry ingredients into the batter and combine until a sticky dough is formed. Fold the raspberries, chocolate and walnuts carefully into the dough. Take care to prevent the dried raspberries from crumbling by folding gently.
4. Transfer the dough onto a clean floured surface and divide into two equal parts. Form each half into a rough log about 10 X 2 inches in length. (The dough is sticky and it is helpful if you flour your hands while working with it). Transfer each log onto the prepared cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes until they turn golden brown. Rotate the cookie sheet halfway through baking to ensure even cooking.
5. Remove the logs and let them cool for 12 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 300F. Using a serrated knife, slice each log diagonally into 3/8 inch thick sections. (The thickness of the sections are entirely up to you, if you like them thicker you can even go up to an inch). Transfer the cut slices back onto the parchment paper and bake until golden and crisp on both sides for about 10 minutes on each side. Rotate the cookie sheet halfway through baking. Once cooked, transfer the biscotti from the cookie sheet onto a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an air tight container.
15 Responses
I just adore how dramatic your images are…and these sound substantial and delicious!
Beautiful! Your biscotti look and sound very tempting. Perfect with a cup of coffee…
Cheers,
Rosa
This is amazing 🙂 Love it! Thanks for recipe 🙂
i always adore your writing and photography! talking about random things from the store – i bought few baby eggplants because they look cute, dont even know what to do with it (also, I am not much of a eggplant person).
Even though I love biscotti, I've never tried making it myself. Yours looks SO good + i love the flavor combination. Delish!
That biscotti is to die for….I've never tried making one myself but love to eat it 😀
LOVE the photos, Nik. And I've yet to make biscotti… need to make it someday 🙂
I love biscotti and have even managed to make some decent gluten-free ones. The raspberries would make them rather special.
Aww, thank you!
Thank you Rosa, the raspberries definitely make it.
Thank you so much Dixya, I always like feedback on my work. I too have been hunting for baby eggplants but they are hard to find. I had some recently at a restaurant and they were tasty..
Thank you, Amy!
Thank you, Manju. They are super easy to bake so do give it a shot sometime.
Thank you so much, Kiran. I am a big fan of all your avocado baking recipes.
That's awesome Suzanne. I've been using more and more whole grain flours whenever possible. It is an exciting challenge. Freeze-dried fruit are blessing!