Monday, 24 May 2010

gingerbread biscotti

This is the first batch of goodies I have in store for Sunday and well, the rest of it is happening and I'll get round to blogging about it. All I can say is that it'll be a busy week ahead and really, I'm enjoying every minute of it!

I mentioned earlier about my dilemna with my one oven at home. It's great that I have my aunt on board helping me out with the catering (that makes two of us and two ovens) but as much as I can hope to get another oven, I've decided one is all that I have and I'm going to have to work with it. So a week out, I've decided to start with biscotti; once baked, biscotti can keep up to to one month in an air tight container which works out perfectly for me. It means I can get started rather having to do all the baking the day before.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Line a baking tray. 

Whisk 110g dark brown sugar and 1 egg in a bowl until combined.

Sift in 75g plain flour, 35g self raising flour, 4tsp ground ginger abd 1 tsp ground cinnamon.

Add to it 115g coarsely chopped crystallised ginger.

Stir to combine.

Shape dough into a 20cm log; place on the lined tray and bake for 30 minutes. Cool on tray.

Reduce oven to 150 degrees.

Using a serrated knife, cut log diagonally into 5mm slices. Place slices on the lined oven trays and bake for a further 30 minutes.

Turn the biscotti halfway through baking.

Cool on wire racks.


Cooking with crystallised ginger (or ginger for that matter) isn't my usual kind of thing but the catering this weekend has given me the opportunity to try a few new flavours. Apparently there'll be about 150 people there, most of them being adults and I figured ginger is more of an adult flavour and amongst all the people there, some will like it, I hope.

Personally, I don't mind the ginger in this biscotti. The bite of the ginger gives this biscuit a real kick and I guess I'm hoping to produce a few standout items which will get noticed this Sunday and this is probably going to be one of them. I'll do a few good old favourites and well, posts of those will follow!

10 comments:

Rita (mademoiselle délicieuse) said...

So the catering project has already started! Best of luck =) I expect much more butter to be coming our way?

Two fit and fun gals said...

oh goodluck on the catering project! :O)

& mmm biscotti ive only ver tried suzes and i loved it!

Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella said...

Hubby says that he doesn't like biscotti but I think these ginger ones will definitely change his mind! ;)

Angie's Recipes said...

Your biscotti sound very special with candied ginger! I must look out for some candied ginger to try the recipe.

missklicious said...

Argh, your blog makes me so hungry with all the delicious goodies you bake!

Anonymous said...

GINGER! great minds think alike. I just baked ginger muffins! :)

Whats up with the catering byusiness!!! do tell! :)

Anh said...

good luck on the catering project! I love the idea of gingerbread biscotti :)

Von said...

I've never had biscotti before =[ But it looks fun to make, and looks delicious too, although I don't really like ginger. What's crystallised ginger? I've never heard of it before.....

And wow- catering for 150 people sounds like a really difficult challenge!

Forager said...

I love love love anything ginger. Gotta make this!

panda said...

mademoiselle delicieuse - surprisingly i actually didn't up using that much butter. anyway, stay tuned, just getting round to typing up all my posts now :)

betty - i love suze's biscotti! mine's have more of a homemade look and feel and well, it was fun experimenting with all the flavours

lorraine - i guess ginger is a blokey flavour. i do hope you change his mind!

angie - using candied ginger was probably one of the more 'out-there' recipes i've ever done. do give it a go and let me know what you end up making!

missklicious - thanks for the compliment! i'll say the same about your blog. I have been hovering over yours for the last couple of weeks and have been stocking up on ulta3 nail polishes :)

vickys - lol, we must have woke up thinking the same thing! well in a nutshell, a good friend of mine asked me to help cater for a church function and i stuck my hand up straight away. lots of fun, lots of food and i wish that catering could be a real job for me!

anh - thanks so much. i actually like making biscotti - it's great to have a stash nearby to munch on and really, they're not too unhealthy :)

von - at first i thought biscotti would be hard to make but it's actually not too bad. takes probably just over an hour from start to finish. do give it a go. i found crystallised ginger at the supermarket - it was on sale and I thought i'd buy a bag just to have handy. just happened to have a gingerbread biscotti recipe come my way and it came to good use!

forager -i'm glad to see this post came in handy!