Advent Calendar Day 1
Nutty Chocolate Biscotti
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Hello! The 2024 All Day Cake recipe advent calendar starts today! In case you missed it, here’s a quick recap of what’s happening:
Starting on the 1st of December (today!), I’ll be sending out a festive recipe every single day right up until Christmas Eve. All the recipes are perfect for gifting - mostly biscuits, but also a selection of truffles, confections, and other delicious bits and bobs so that you can create the ultimate edible gift box! The recipes will range from simple to slightly more complex, with adjustments included wherever possible so you can tailor them to your needs. I know that not everyone wants to spend hours on end making biscuits, I can’t relate though!
The advent calendar is primarily for paid subscribers, but I’ll also be sharing one recipe for free subscribers every Friday. If you can’t commit beyond one month, I’d still love to have you! Even if you only sign up as a paid subscriber for December, you’ll receive over 24 recipes for just £5/$7. And I don’t know about you, but I think that’s an absolute bargain!
Not only am I doing the advent calendar but I will also be sharing a few larger festive bakes. Buckle up because this is going to be a wild ride, I started testing these recipes in APRIL and I’ve been absolutely bursting to share them, I can’t wait to bake along with you.
I asked, and you said that you want to know what’s coming up so that you can plan your bakes, if you’d rather be surprised STOP READING NOW!
Because I’m quite possibly insane I’m following 4 loose colour schemes. I’m including the colour schemes on the advent calendar list so that if you fancy making colour co-ordinated gift boxes you can see which colours are coming up. Obviously you don’t need to follow a colour scheme but I thought that this would be a fun little challenge for myself (I like to make my life unnecessarily difficult), I find that you can easily get lost in a sea of beige when creating a lot of biscuit recipes. So without further ado here’s what’s coming up, including a little emoji to indicate the colour scheme and included if the recipe calls for tempered/melted chocolate so that you can just do one big batch of tempered chocolate and dip everything at once.:
Chocolate, Hazelnut & Lemon Biscotti🌟 (free!) (choc)
Matcha Chequerboards🎄
Amaretto Truffles ❤️ (choc)
Choc Orange Marble Cookies 🌟
Viennese Pears🎄
Salted Maple Marshmallows ❄️ (free)
Gingerbread ❄️
Cocoa Crunch Biscuits 🌟 (choc)
Stollen Cookies ❤️
Layered Gianduja 🎄
Candy Cane Tuile❤️ (choc)
Zimtsterne/Lebkuchen Stars ❄️
Clementine & Clove Linzers🌟 (free!)
Mint Choc Trees🎄 (choc)
Brandy Butter Truffles 🌟 (choc)
Pistachio Cardamom Crinkles🎄
Jammy Dodgers ❤️
Pecan Vanillekimpfel ❄️
Mulled Wine Pate De Fruits ❤️
Peppermint Toffees ❄️ (free!)
Anzac 🌟
Yuzu Lime Flowers🎄
Cherry Florentines ❤️ (choc)
Chocolate Salami ❄️
Ok let’s get on with our first recipe!
Today, we’re making a biscuit inspired by my grandmother. Despite being German, she never really made classic German Christmas biscuits. Instead, she’d bake chocolate, lemon, and hazelnut biscuits every year. They were absolutely delicious, but very crunchy, like really crunchy.
I’ve often found that biscotti have a similar issue of being super hard, so I decided to take her favourite flavours and make them into biscotti while tackling the crunch problem. I do like a biscuit with a bit of substance, but I don’t want it to result in a festive trip to the dentist! After some tweaking, I’ve managed to make a biscotti recipe that has just the right level of crunch.
Nutty Chocolate Biscotti
Ingredients - Makes about 40 biscotti
70g whole hazelnuts
70g whole almonds
100g eggs (2 medium eggs)
160g caster sugar
Zest of 2 lemons
60g olive oil or any neutral oil
260g plain flour plus extra to dust
2tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
100g roughly chopped 70% dark chocolate
To Dip
300g tempered 70% dark chocolate (see this post for tempering info)
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C(fan)/356°F and line a baking tray with baking paper/a reusable mat.
Roast the nuts for 15 minutes until golden brown.
When the nuts are done, set them aside to cool and reduce the oven temperature to 160°C(fan)/320°F.
Combine the eggs, sugar, lemon zest and olive oil and mix to combine.
Add the flour, baking powder and salt, followed by the nuts and chocolate. The mix will be quite sticky but that’s ok!
Divide into 2, around 400g per ball.
Form two sausages the length of your tray, don’t be afraid to use a bit of flour to stop the dough from sticking to your bench.
Bake the two logs at 160°C(fan)/320°F for 30 minutes.
When baked, leave the logs to cool. I like to leave them until the chocolate is fully set for to get the neatest slices but you can cut them straight away if you’re in a hurry.
Set the oven to 120°C(fan)/ 250°F.
Cut into 1cm slices on a slight diagonal and arrange the slices flat on a tray.
Bake for a further 30-40 minutes until the biscotti are crunchy all the way through.
Set aside to cool.
Melt/temper the chocolate, dip the biscotti and leave on parchment to set.
These biscuits will keep in an airtight container for up to 4 weeks, they’re a really good biscuit to make ahead of time because they stay fresh for ages! I’m still nibbling on biscotti that I made over a month ago and thoroughly enjoying them. As ever please tag me in any of your bakes, I’d love to see them. If you’re enjoying the advent calendar please share it with your family and friends! I’ll see you tomorrow for day 2 🎄.
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Hi, I made these yesterday and they were easy and delicious. I will be sending them in my Christmas gift mailings to friends and family. I, honestly, though would like them a bit sweeter. I could change the chocolate to semi sweet for the dip but was wondering if I could add a bit more sugar in the mix without affecting the texture of bar. I love the tenderness of the bite for sure. Thank you.
Hello - I'm making these this morning sometime. Could you confirm if the nuts and chocolate get added in with everything else when the dry and wet are mixed. I just can't see it in the instructions but I assume there is nowhere else they can be added? Thanks