Coconut Pistachio Biscotti

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Everything has to come to an end, right? That is the policy of life. I had joined the Secret Recipe Club in June and was really enjoying my monthly assignments, when Sara declared last month that the SRC was winding up for good and November would be the last month. The monthly participation was dwindling and according to her, the club would be better off ending on a high note rather than allowing it to die. All of us agreed to it. I have been a part of a lot of challenges previously and it is heart breaking to see how the initial interest just goes down and then it goes into a natural death stage. The SRC is a highly successful event that has been going on for a few years now, so the decision she has taken was for good. I would have started in January, had not the initial mail got unnoticed in my junk folder. Nevertheless, the few months I have had with the challenge has been fantastic and I feel sad that it is ending…

For the final assignment, I was assigned the blog “Dessert before Dinner“. Oh, I would love that all the time! In fact, have only dessert and no dinner… 😉 OK, jokes aside… The blog is the baby of Stephanie, who lives with her husband and a cute looking cat in Northern Virginia – wondering if that is anywhere close to where my sister stays! I am totally zero with the geography of US of A, hehe… – and has an amazing collection of recipes on her blog. I totally love her blog name since it kind of matches with my personality too. There are times when I have literally avoided dinner since I have had too much dessert and wanted to make amends for my lousy eating. Ahem ahem…

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While browsing through her blog, I landed up on some very interesting recipes like the Greek Yogurt Souffle, Peach Sorbet and Slow Cooker Peas Soup. But my heart finally settled for these lovely biscottis. It took me 800+ recipes to finally get a biscotti recipe on the blog. 😀 My first attempt was an eggless chocolate one a couple of years ago, which flopped miserably. I was too impatient, that I sliced it before the log cooled down and what I had in my hand was a crumbly mess. After that failure, I never looked in the direction of making a biscotti till I tried this one and how amazing it turned out to be! Biscotti are crunchy oblong shaped Italian biscuits, which were originally baked with almonds, and also known as cantuccini. These are normally eaten by dunking into a hot drink, mostly coffee. Now nobody restricts biscotti to almonds, right? 🙂 You have all sorts of variations with or without the almonds and with so many add-ons. My love for anything coconut is already evident on the blog and the pistachios added only spiked my interest to try these biscotti.

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Long back, while I was talking to an ex-colleague as to how much time it takes for me to overcome a failure, he laughed and made fun of me, “And you call yourself a food blogger?” It has been more than two three years since my biscotti failed and it took me so long to make them again. 😀 Thank you so much for making me overcome that fear, Stephanie… I am so grateful! 😀 The batter/ dough of the biscotti is very close to that of cookies or scones. You bring them together into a shape, make it like a log and bake it for sometime till firm. Once cool, it is cut into slices and baked again till they get crunchy. The kids loved it with their cup of warm milk, while I had it just like that. I had made half the recipe and wished I had made the whole, but InShaAllah, hopefully this is the start to many more biscottis in the future. 🙂 I omitted the egg and substituted with yogurt and reduced the sugar a wee bit, but I felt looking at her recipe, that it wouldn’t be overtly sugary at all!

So that’s it to our last SRC assignment. I will surely miss excitedly waiting for the emails with the assigned blog and rummaging through the recipe index, getting confused what to finally make. I have truly enjoyed the experience and in case the challenge comes back, I would love to be a part of it again! 🙂 Another thing, I am so happy about how the photographs turned out to be for this post. The styling was influenced a now-inactive blog, however I am really not able to recall the name of it. 🙁 She had posted her biscotti in a ceramic mug, and somehow it stuck in my head till I clicked this. How do you find the clicks? Please do let me know your comments – your encouragement and criticism will help me a lot. I am nowhere a good photographer, but the only thing I am looking at is having decent photographs and reliable recipes on the blog! 🙂

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5 from 2 votes

Coconut Pistachio Biscotti

Course Cookies

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour 10 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 20 minutes minutes

Servings 4 -6

Author Rafeeda

Ingredients

• 50 gm butter softened
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup yogurt
• 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup grated coconut
• 1/2 cup shelled pistachios

Instructions

• Roast the pistachios for five minutes, crush them into smaller peices.
• Roast the coconut till slightly dry.
• Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Keep a cookie tray with parchment paper ready.
• Beat butter and sugar till creamy. Add the yogurt and beat till combined.
• Add in the dry ingredients and beat briefly.
• Add the pistachios and coconut and bring the dough together. Do not knead, you just need the dough sticking to each other. I used my hands to do this.
• After placing the dough on the prepared tray, shape the dough into a 10 inch long, 3 inch wide log.
• Bake for 30 minutes. Take out and allow to cool for 15 minutes. (I switched off my oven at this stage)
• Carefully cut the log into 1/2-3/4 inch thick slices using a sharp knife and spread the slices out. I got around 10 slices. (I heated my oven at this stage)
• Bake for 15 to 20 minutes till crunchy. Take out and cool on a wire rack.
• Serve with a cup of warm milk or even better, a cup of black coffee!

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