Biscotti Da Te

For my last IRP project I wanted to make something a little easier and fun, so I decided to make
biscotti da te from The Il Fornaio Baking Book. “Biscotti da te -  literally, ‘tea cookies’ -  are buttery
confections that are  baked either plain or topped with a fruit jam.” (Galli 147). The cookies turned out
delicious and were greatly enjoyed.  

Adding egg

Creaming the butter and sugar 

The first step was to mix the butter and sugar. I added both ingredients  to my mixer then creamed
them together for about 5 minutes. Next I added one whole egg and continued  creaming the
ingredients together. Finally I added the last of the wet ingredients, an egg yolk, vanilla, and lemon
zest. Then slowly I mixed the flour into the wet ingredients,  as I added the flower the dough began to
come together and become easy to work with. I turned the dough out onto a counter top and kneaded

Scraps and cookies with jam before baking.

a few times before flattening it into a disk and letting it chill in the fridge for about an hour. Once the
dough had chilled, I rolled  the dough out then using a cookie  cutter  shaped as many cookies as
I could. I gathered the scraps and rolled the dough out one more time. I cut out more cookies but,
since Galli recommends not to roll out the dough again or risk your cookies developing a tough texture (Gali 147)
I decided to bake the leftover scraps.

I immediately baked about half of the cookies but decided to try jam on the other half.  Galli
explained how the jam is spread over the top of the cookie. “Make a shallow indentation in the center
of each cookie and spoon ½ teaspoon raspberry or apricot  jam into each hollow.” (Galli 147). I
carefully followed Galli’s instructions trying to avoid dripping the jam and mostly succeeding. I baked all
the cookies for about 15 minutes, until they were solid and dry.

Cookies after baking

The cookies got many rave reviews both the ones

with and without jam. I think that the jam ones were a bit better because the jam made them less dry and the lemon and raspberry flavors compliment each other.  Over the course of the last quarter I have learned a lot and I am a better baker now then I was when I started. I now know have a better understanding of Italian baking and all the work it requires.

Works Cited 

Galli, Franco. The Il Fornaio Baking Book: Sweet and Savory Recipes from the Italian Kitchen. Chronicle, 2003.

Baking Cookies- Choclate Wows

Hey everybody, my name is Justine and this is my first Q2 IRP book blog post. I chose the book "Good Housekeeping Favorite Recipes: Cookies!" I chose this book because I wanted to become a better baker and I love cookies, so why not bake cookies. For this blog post I chose to make cookies called "Chocolate Wows".

I've always loved to bake. From when I was little using the easy bake oven to now making things with my mom in the kitchen. My childhood consisted of always having fresh cookies made for me to eat, cakes you could only dream of having for my birthday, and always having little treats to munch on. I grew up with my whole family baking, so now I want to become a better baker myself.

The recipe for the cookies "Chocolate Wows" is the picture to the left. I made the mistake of going to get all the ingredients the night before thanksgiving, worst mistake of my life .