Would you believe if I said things are pretty crazy in my kitchen these days? There is no room for me to cook. Every little inch on my countertop is occupied, ugly brown boxes are strewn all over the floor and most of my cooking essentials are stowed away. That leaves me with very little-to-none-options on what to post every week. I know, I know! You would say “Where is the fire, girl? Take a break. Settle down and then come back to blog.” And I agree. I would go that route when push comes to shove but until then let me cook-and-whine-and-cook some more.
Amidst all this chaos and cacophony, my heart always finds a rhythm in baking. When the sweet aroma of food wafts all over the kitchen through the closed oven door, it brings a smile of satisfaction to my face. I know even stove-top cooked food smells awesome but there is something so amazing about the subtleness with which the baked good’s smell slowly reaches your nose, it is difficult to explain and all I can say is that it’s not-in-your-face kind. Am I making any sense here? Anyways, so when left with no options, my go to recipes are mostly baked.
I love all things that can be dunked into my tea. It just makes my mornings bright and waking up to an alarm clock all worth it. And when it is a Cranberry Pistachio biscotti, that makes my mornings a cup full of sunshine. I am not kidding. They are that good, genuinely. Even though it is such a wintery combo, I loved every bite of it in the 90 degree weather too. Tangy-sweet cranberries paired with delicate and nutty pistachios in a flaky, buttery double baked cookie is a killer combination. They taste great even if you bake them once. So, now that all the typical excuses are out-of-the-way, let’s start baking!
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup plus 2 tbsp. Sugar
- 1/2 packed dried Cranberries
- 1/2 cup plus 1/8 cup roasted, unsalted whole Pistachios
- 1 1/2 cup all purpose Flour
- 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- Zest of 1 Orange
- pinch of Salt
- 2 large Eggs, at room temperature
- 5 1/2 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 tsp Baking powder
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F.
- In a bowl, add butter and sugar and whisk until smooth and whipped. Add one egg at a time and whisk well until smooth batter.
- To it, add Vanilla extract, Orange zest, salt, cranberries and pistachios and mix well.
- In another bowl, sieve together baking powder and flour.
- Fold in the dry ingredients with the wet ones. Using hands at this time will work best at this time. Make a sticky dough.
- On a floured surface, shape this dough into a log of roughly 15-20 cms. Make sure to give sufficient height to the log as it will covert later into the width of the biscotti. (about 3/4 inch)
- Flatten the top of the log with your hands. Transfer this log on to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes.
- Once it is baked, take the baking sheet out of the oven and let it cool down completely at room temperature.
- Cut the log into 13-14 biscotti at a 45 degree angle.
- Arrange the biscotti on a baking tray (with the top and bottom part now serving as its edges), bake for 5 minutes at 350F before flipping it over and baking for 5 minutes again.
- The biscotti will turn crisp and flaky only after cooling down. Enjoy with a hot cup of tea or coffee.
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This looks yum. And I totally get it – the aroma of stove-top cooking (though delicious) is different from the divine smells permeating the house while baking.
🙂