Almond Biscotti

Finally a post after all these days. Now that I'm in the middle of my third trimester I have slowed down so much. I get so tired after work, all I want to do is put my feet up and lie on the couch. This has resulted in procrastination on making stuff and posting it. Well, last week our friend Danielle threw me a really beautiful baby shower. All our friends from work came and we had so much fun. I got beautiful gifts and i'm so grateful for all the love people showered on us and our lil one. Anyway, I wanted to thank Danielle and her girls for the beautiful shower. I saw this really cute cookie jar in target the other day:colorful and bright, something the girls would love. So decided to fill it with something homemade. Since Danielle is not a big fan of simple sugars, I decided to make a healthy cookie and whats better than the traditional biscotti. Using no fat, low sugar and lots of toasted almonds this indeed is a very healthy yet delectable treat. Biscotti is a twice baked cookie that is great for dunking in coffee. So here is my recipe:

Ingredients (makes 2 dozen)

2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup almonds, toasted and chopped
1 tsp almond extract (for a more intense flavor add 1.5 tsp)
1 tsp vanilla essence
3/4 cup sugar (maybe 1 cup if you like it a little sweeter)
3 eggs
dash of salt
1 tsp baking powder

Method:
Preheat over to 300 degrees. Combine dry ingredients. Beat eggs with almond extract and vanilla essence. Add slowly to dry ingredients mixing with an electric mixer. Add almonds and continue mixing until a dough forms. Flour your hands and surface and form the dough into logs. This recipe will make two logs about 10 inches long. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place logs on the sheet and bake for about 40 minutes. Remove and let it cool for 10 minutes on a cooling rack.

Transfer to a cutting board and use a serrated knife to slice the biscotti diagonally.

Place each piece on the baking sheet and bake again for 10 minutes on each side. Remove from oven and let it cool. A nice touch is to dip each end of the biscotti in melted choolate and letting that cool to get chocolate dipped biscottis.