Biscuit week on Great British Bake Off is one of those ones that I always enjoy but often have disasters on – biscuits are very unforgiving. They either work brilliantly or fail completely. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground.
The three bakes this week were biscotti, Arlettes and show stopper biscuit boxes filled with 36 more biscuits.
Arlettes are described as ‘reverse puff-pastry’ and I haven’t a clue how to make puff-pastry the right way round, never mind backwards so they were out and there’s no way I was making a biscuit tin out of biscuit to put more biscuits in so that left biscotti.
I’ve never made biscotti before but after a bit of research on the internet they sounded reasonably simple and the sheer variety of recipes out there implied they were easy to adapt.
With that in mind I decided to make my biscotti using one of my very favourite chocolate bars – Daim – and roasted hazelnuts.
Hazelnut & Daim Biscotti
250g Plain Flour
1½ tsp Baking Powder
¼ tsp Salt
110g Unsalted Butter, softened
150g Caster Sugar
2 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
110g Daim Bars (4 small bars), chopped
110g Chopped Roasted Hazelnuts
- Preheat oven to 160°C (fan)/180°C and grease and lightly flour baking tray
- Mix flour, salt and baking powder in a small bowl
- Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy
- Beat in eggs and vanilla (and a tiny bit of flour if the mixture starts to curdle)
- Gradually add flour mixture, beating well after each addition
- Stir in nuts and chocolate
- Divide mixture into two and shape into logs approximately 5cm apart on baking tray
- Bake for 25 minutes or until lightly browned
- Allow to cool for five minutes then transfer to chopping board
- Slice diagonally into slices approximately 2cm thick
- Return slices to baking tray, standing upright
- Bake for a further 10 minutes until slightly dry all over
- Allow to cool on a wire rack
- Eat!
I enjoyed making these and I love how the chewy caramel from the Daim bars contrasts with the dry, crunchy biscuit texture and the sweetness from the roasted nuts is just delicious. I will be making them again for sure!
The Great Bloggers Bake Off 2015 is being hosted by the lovely Jenny at Mummy Mishaps and if you hop over there you can take a look at all the other super tasty entries in the linky.
These have my favourite chocolate in too! I bet they taste fantastic x
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They are yummy – I love the way the caramel adds little bursts of sweet chewiness in the crisp biscuit. Yummy!
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mmmmmm i do love dime bars and i love biscotti so this is a win win for me 🙂 i found making biscotti much easier than making biscuits x
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Yes they were less faffy I found. And Dime bars are my favourite 😀
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Yum, these sound so tasty! There is a great variety in biscotti recipes it seems – mine had no butter in at all. I love the look of these chocolate biscotti, they look like a real treat.
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Yes they seem like a good one to play with and adapt – I might try again as they were quite easy 🙂
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Good choice of chocolate bar to work with! yum #GBBO
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They are my favourite – I just wanted an excuse to buy them really 😉
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I absolutely love Daim Bars, so I am sure I would love these too!
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Daim Bars certainly seem to be a winner!!
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Oh my gosh! Love Daim.. will definitely be giving these version a go! Hazel x
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It’s lush and super easy 🙂
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Ooh this sounds a really lush combination, definitely one to try! Looks great! #gbbobloggers2015
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