Biscotti (Attempt #3)

I. Found. It. (I think). Finally, I figured out why I couldn't replicate the same flavors as the biscotti from Mike's Pastry that my family loves. It's because it's a special biscotti with a special name. Two weeks ago, when I went to Mike's Pastry, I was smart enough to actually read the labels underneath the biscotti and saw that the type of biscotti I was trying to replicate was called: Quaresimali, AKA:Almond Lenten Biscotti.

With my new found knowledge, I looked up a few recipes online and found out they were all pretty much the same so I picked the one that had pictures and started to try it out. Now, stupidly, I didn't follow the recipe exactly. It calls for whole almonds that you toast and pulverize 1/4 of them and chop the rest. I didn't have a whole pound of almonds but I did have almond meal so I used that for the pulverized almonds but I forgot to toast them. For the chopped almonds, I used almond slices because that's all I had. I also altered the size in which you make the dough rectangles from three 15x4 logs to only two 15x4 logs, I thought three logs would stretch the dough too thin and make the biscotti too flat. Now, if you follow the original recipe, this may not be the case so I'll have to make another batch to check that out.

My Biscotti came out tasting wonderfully and extremely close to the Mike's Pastry ones. The color was finally that nice brown color and not the pasty yellow that the other recipes produced. B says that he still thinks they add some ginger so maybe I will try that. I plan to do a second batch, only this time I'll follow the recipe exactly that way I can see if all the baking times etc are correct. Once I do that I will post the recipe for everyone with any modifications needed. In the meantime, below are my first attempt at the recipe. Notice, the biscotti are a bit thin and almonds not very chunky. Can't wait to try this again and do it the right way! Ha!