Coffee Musings - 102407

I lost a bet; the New York Yankees did not win the AL East, and the Red Sox did, so I'm baking biscotti for the person who made the bet with me. She wanted anise biscotti - no problem. However, I was not able to find ground anise, and the seeds didn't grind out well enough in the food processor. I bought a mortar and pestle, but it still didn't grind well. However, I was able to get 2 teaspoons out of it. Unfortunately, between the time I bought the seeds and the time I used them today, the smell evaporated, and I thought they would only add a faint hint of anise to the biscotti. So, I added anise extract also. The recipe calls for lemon zest - no problem. However, between the time I first read the recipe, and today I decided to stop buying organic produce for a week, and I'm not using the zest of pesticide laden lemons for these biscotti. So, I added a little more lemon extract. I'm buying organic produce now, just buying other dry ingredients from a non-organic chain place. Luckily, most of my dry ingredients I bought when I was buying organic so I'm all set there.

Well, I baked the two logs for 26 minutes and they are not a light brown, but a darkish brown, and there are spots. I don't know if the spots are from the sugar. Actually, that wouldn't make sense, as the batter was very smooth, in fact a little on the wet side, but definitely not in any way lumpy. In about an hour I'll cut them and do the drying out. The recipe from the International Cookie Cookbook calls for the same temperature for the second baking, but I'm going to decrease it because the outsides are so dark already. I hope they turn out! Geez, she's waited a couple week, and I hope I won't have to redo them. I don't think I will as long as I use common sense. The second baking is to try them out so a low temperature is ok. Many other cookbooks use a low temperature, but they bake them longer. This book uses a higher temperature for a shorter amount of time for the second baking. We shall see, eh?