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Chez Larsson

Making a home in Stockholm, one drawer at a time

Almond biscotti

It was Father's Day here on Sunday, which was excuse enough.

Father’s Day in Sweden falls in November, and we do not make much of it, but it was a perfectly good reason to bake somebody’s favourite thing, which in this house means almonds and a great many of them.

I had to hurry to photograph the jar this morning before there was nothing left in it.

A bowl of roughly chopped almonds beside jugs of flour and milk, butter and eggs

Ingredients

  • 170 g / 1 cup almonds, lightly chopped
  • 100 g / 3.5 oz butter
  • 1 dl sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 3½ dl / 1½ cups wheat flour

Double the almonds. The recipe this comes from, the standard Swedish seven-kinds-of-biscuits book, asks for about half this quantity. It is not enough.

I make two batches at once, so everything above gets doubled again.

The finished biscotti piled in a glass bowl

Method

Cream the sugar and butter together.

Add the eggs one at a time, mixing between.

Add the flour and baking powder, then the almonds.

Chopped almonds being folded into the pale batter

Spread the mixture onto a lined baking sheet as a loaf. One for a single batch, two side by side for a double. It is a soft mixture rather than a dough; shape it rather than roll it.

Bake in the middle of the oven at 200°C / 400°F for 12 to 15 minutes.

Baked loaves cut into slices and spread out on the baking sheet

The second bake, which is the important one

Let the loaves cool slightly, then cut across into pieces about 2 cm (¾ in) wide, and spread the slices out on the sheet.

Turn the oven off. Put them back in and wedge the door ajar with a wooden spoon.

Leave them there until the oven is cold. They dry out slowly in the falling heat rather than colouring, which is what makes biscotti snap instead of bend.

Store airtight.