Baking Biscotti

I'm still learning from my culinary catering class. This morning's class was all about learning how to plan events and select a theme and match the food to the chosen theme. Piece of cake, right?

Speaking of cake - well, sort of .... yesterday I decided to try out a new recipe I found. Cherry Almond biscotti! I've baked many a biscotti in all flavors, but never cherry. So why not try something new? Yep, a new recipe. I gather everything I think I will need - the standard eggs, flour, butter, all the usual stuff. Now, according to the ingredients, I needed amaretto - which I had none of. So, off I went to the local red dot store (you know what those are, right? Maybe in some areas they are package stores, or just plain LIQUOR STORES). I bought the amaretto in a big 750 ML bottle, then two stocking-stuffer tiny bottles to be consumed at yet another time, then had to stop for dried cherries, which I could not find in the first store (that's GROCERY, not liquor). After TWO more stops, we finally found them. It took me several hours to make this, as biscotti (which means twice-baked in Italian) has to be baked twice. Duh.

There was much mixing, blending, chopping, reconstituting, and finally baking done. With parchment paper, and later without. Without baking racks, but at the end WITH. My oven was fired up all afternoon long.

They look great - and I have not yet tasted them, but biscotti lovers would be proud. This Southern Girl can hang with the Italian mama-mias anytime and bake with the best of 'em! What do you think?

Here they are - if there WAS espresso in that cup, they'd be dunked but this was just for effect and photographic purposes (and the biscotti jar is just for fun - they ususally do not hold flowers, in case you're wondering, but I still had beautiful mums and some sugar maple leaves that were begging to be part of a fall arrangement...and one lone rose)!!

Mangia!!