It's becoming something of a mini-tradition (ok, so it's happened exactly three times so far) for me to sit and watch the latest episode of Bread, notebook in hand, gazing in awe as Mr Hollywood finds yet more ways to turn flour, yeast, salt and water into all manner of different shapes, colours and textures, whilst Gary taps away at the computer on the other side of the room, trying to humour me. At the end of each episode, I turn to him, and ask his opinion on which of the breads shown in the episode I should attempt to make next, and we have one of those great conversations where I think out loud, and he mumbles agreement with whatever I am saying, and then I happily toddle off to find the bread flour.
I knew that this week was going to be different however as soon as the camera panned over a shot of Paul dunking crisp biscotti into his Chocolate Mocha dipping sauce, and the typing from the corner of the room stopped... "I want those please" was pretty much all I heard for the next 10 minutes.
So this week I made the Chocolate, Orange and Almond variation of biscotti from Paul's book (complete of course with the accompanying dipping sauce!) The full recipe can be found
here along with two other variations, Pistachio and Cranberry, and Hazelnut and Date.
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| Chocolate, Orange and Almond Biscotti |
I found this recipe easy to follow, everything came together as described, but it does involve getting your hands dirty to bring the biscotti dough together at the beginning. My only issue really is that I didn't get a strong chocolate taste from my biscotti, and they are no way near as dark and rich in colour as Paul's. I can only think that maybe my chocolate wasn't as high in quality, as I used exactly the right quantity from the recipe? The orange flavours came through really well however, and the almonds added a great texture.
All in all though, I would thoroughly recommend this recipe, it's quick in terms of bringing the dough together, and the longer bake times are more forgiving than a normal biscuit, where an extra 30 seconds can be all it takes to take a bake over the cliff. Plus, they look really impressive when you serve them to guests with their cup of tea!
In terms of my 'bread-ucation' project, I did feel like I cheated a little bit this week, as although Paul says that the biscotti are made from a bread dough, I still feel like they don't really count. To counter this, I did make some Naan breads to accompany a homemade curry tonight, using a recipe for Curried Naan breads from 'Bread' although I omitted the sultanas and mango. They turned out really well!
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| Curried Naan Breads |
I've also tried my hand at a white bread loaf, and some homemade pizza this week, and have been really pleased with the results... I think I might finally be getting somewhere!
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| Sausage, Mushroom and Pepper Pizza |
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| Traditional White Bread Loaf |
