Honeyed Biscotti with Dates and Almonds

When you think of Italy what do you think of? Off the top of my head, it's food, history, and... food.

I've made a ton of Italian meals over the years, but I've never actually attempted to make Italian treats. My in-laws are in town this week, and each time they come in, I love to have something homemade baked for them. As I was flipping through my cookbooks, I stumbled across a recipe for biscotti.

I've never made biscotti before, and if I'm being completely honest, have never been a huge fan of it. But, I do know my husband and in-laws enjoy it, so I said, "why the heck not, Sam. Let's bake it!"

So, I did and I'm glad. I hope you will be, too!

Honeyed Biscotti with Almonds and Dates

Ingredients:

2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 tsp of baking powder
1/4 tsp of baking soda
1/8 tsp of kosher salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup of canola oil/ vegetable oil
2/3 cup of honey
1/3 cup of sugar
1 tsp of vanilla extract
finely grated zest of 1 orange
1 cup of salted, roasted whole almonds, roughly chopped
1 cup of dates, halved lengthwise, pitted & roughly chipped (I bought mine pre-chopped in the nuts aisle. So much easier.)
1 large egg white beaten with 1 tsp of water

Steps:

1. In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, honey, sugar, vanilla, and zest. Add the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Stir in the almonds and dates. Cover the bowl and refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours.

3. Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. I ran out of parchment paper so I just sprayed non-stick baking sheets with Pam non-stick baking spray. It worked well.

4. Divide the dough in half. With wet hands, shape each portion into a long, thin log about 15 inches long and 2 inches wide. Place the logs evenly spaced on one of the prepared sheets. Brush the top and sides with egg wash. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Note: I over-stretched my dough and, once baking, it began to spread even further. I had extra-long biscotti that I ended up halving.

5. Cut the logs crosswise into slices about 1/2 inches thick. Carefully lay the slices cut side down on the pans. Space 2 oven racks evenly and reset the oven to 325 degrees.