Cantuccini

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is for Cantuccini, which is a lot like biscotti. I like baking biscotti-like recipes, but they aren’t really my favorite to eat. I prefer a much more decadent cookie, but I still like them enough. This version is very classic; flavored with whole almonds and a small bit of cinnamon. You can get the recipe with a quick web search. Make sure you check out how the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers fared with this week’s recipe on the Tuesdays with Dorie blog. I’m sure there are some interesting variations!

I halved this recipe, just making one “log” of cookies. The dough was very crumbly, but I just worked it A LOT and it did come together. I wasn’t sure about the whole almonds in the dough, as I’ve had trouble with other sliced cookies with large chunks of nuts. They shaped up just fine and looked really good after the first baking. I let them cool and hoped that I would be able to cut them in the ¼” slices like the recipe specified.

I was very happy that the cookies, while seemingly dry, cut beautifully. Only one or two were crumbly around the edge and the whole almonds were no problem at all. It was tempting not to bake them the second time, and have a softer cookie, but that’s not really the point of these cookies! They smelled wonderful baking and the almond flavor is so nice. The cinnamon flavor is subtle but it’s there. Although not my favorite style of cookie, these are very nice and perfect to go with a cup of tea.

Recipe from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan, pages 313-314