Tomato? Potato? Biscotto!

Today in class we made biscotti! We followed the classic southern Italian recipe that uses olive oil as its fat.

• 1/2 cup roasted almonds, coarsely chopped
• 1 large egg
• grated zest of 1 lemon
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon table salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

First we toasted the almonds at 350 degrees F for 12 minutes, took them out to cool, and then chopped them.

While the almonds were toasting, we mixed the sugar, olive oil, vanilla and almond extracts, 1 egg, and lemon zest.

Once the almonds were chopped, we added them to a mixture of flour, baking powder, and salt. Then we slowly added the dry mixture into the wet one, stirring it as more was added.

The end result here was a very stiff, sticky dough that we then shaped into an 8″ long rectangle that we then stuck into the oven at 350 degrees F for 28 minutes total, rotating the dough halfway through the process.

Then we took her out to cool for 12 big ones, while turning the oven down to 250 degrees F. After the log was cooled, we cut it up into 11 beautiful baby biscotti.

Next, we put the now cut biscotti back into the oven for 14 big ones total, rotating them halfway through.

We compared our olive oil biscotti side by side with some other biscotti that another group made using butter as the fat element.

1.Why is butter a solid at room temperature while olive oil is a liquid.

The saturated fat in butter allows the molecules to stack and use Van der Waals attractions, due to its structure, to ‘nestle’ closely with other triglycerides which allows butter to be a solid. Olive oil is comprised of unsaturated fats which have double bonds between carbons which cause the structure to curve, preventing stacking from being structured the way it is with saturated fats, and causes oil to be a liquid at room temperature.

2. Remember that butter has 20% water – what will happen to that water in the hot oven? How might that impact the texture?

The water will evaporate and render the dough crispier than the biscotti made with the olive oil.

3. When mixing the ingredients you added the flour mixture slowly to the fat/oil mixture. What effect does the fat/oil have on gluten formation in the dough? What about your biscotti supports your conclusion?

The oil prevents too much gluten from being formed because it coats the flour as it is added to the liquid ingredients. The dough is able to form enough gluten to be cohesive, but not enough to yield a crunchier cookie.