How To: Bake Almond Biscotti

These were made almost exactly one year ago for the lunar new year. I was on a baking frenzy then and somehow, my brain thought biscotti was a good way to show my effort in ushering in the year of the horse. Yes, my brain, more often than not, seems to either think too highly of myself or doesn't really work the way it should.

Still, armed with determination, I set out to bake my maiden batch of this coffee bread.
Recipe? Unfortunately, Chrome has its history (on my tab) set to rival the average duration of my relationship that I can't locate the recipe anymore. I guess you could easily Google up. This post is probably going to be a reminder for folks who think they can bake but really shouldn't and why I am still single.

Roast the almonds. You can either roast them in the oven or lightly toast it over the pan on a low/small fire on the stove.
Most importantly, you shouldn't heed my advice too seriously. I don't know what I am doing half most of the time.

It was an error of judgment when I left my almonds to roast in the oven a bit longer as they didn't seem too roasted until I chopped them up coarsely. By then, it was too late and time to move on.
Like my long gone youth.

Eggs and vanilla essence. I usually buy this brand but the local grocer ran out one day of it and since I was really desperate and lazy, I picked out another brand. Horrible mistake. My cakes turned out weird. It was a local brand that starts with N and its logo is green with white background.

 Whisk the egg and vanilla together.

Sift the baking powder and flour. Oh and a pinch of salt.

 Add in the chopped almond next. You could probably skip the chopping part but I wanted to get a more even distribution of the nuts.

Incorporate the nuts into the flour mixture.

Add in the wet ingredients next.

As it was my first time making it, I was slightly perturbed, not knowing what to expect. Is this the right texture? Does it need more milk? How do I roll it into a dough? Like life, you just learn to roll along (no pun intended).

Here comes the fun part: forming the dough.
Here comes the not-so-fun part: it's all sticky and gooey.
What was I expecting? Well, for starters, the glove is supposed to help prevent from getting my hands literally down and dirty with it but really, it just made it all harder.
It is best to do it with your bare hands on a clean flat surface. Dust it with enough generously with flour so that the dough doesn't stick to the surface. Just roll and roll until it starts to form a slab.

Oh, most importantly, cut your fingernails short. Otherwise, it's worse than eating banana leaf curry rice with your hand.

Lo and behold, my (literally) labor of love. I made these especially for my parents who remarked that they like biscotti. The irony in that I am not even sure if they ate the two boxes I gave them. 
That's not powder sugar, just really lots of flour as I hated the idea of the dough sticking onto my counter.

The main principle of biscotti is twice baked. No, no, not the sort where you think you can fly.
After the initial baking at low temperature to sort of set it in, leave the dough to cool for a bit before slicing it up thinly. Some prefer them thick but my personal preference is wafer thin. Or as thin as my knife would allow.

Unfortunately, the first batch was slightly burnt as I forgot my oven didn't have an even heat coverage. 

The remaining batches fared better. Only pitfall was the almonds were now fully roasted, some even burnt T_T

Still, all in all, I rather liked it :D