TWD - Hazelnut Biscotti minus the hazelnut :)

I'm baaack!!  I wasn't sure I was going to be able to make this one but I did it.  I didn't do it early, I made it TODAY, but it's done!  I missed both of June's baking days because I was so fortunate that I went on vacation for an entire month with my family.  We rented a vacation home for a month and while I intended on baking while I was there I just didn't.  The kitchen didn't have the supplies I needed and well, I was having too much fun with my family.  I will get to them though, I am determined.  Maybe not this month since we have three baking days but I will make them. 

If you are interested in the recipe you can go and visit the hosts this week.  Jodi of Homemade and Wholesome and Katrina of Baking with boys .  Alternatively you can purchase the book Baking with Julia, I highly recommend you do, it's fabulous!  If you have some time go here and check out how everyone did this time, it's fun to see all of the variations :)

I have never made biscotti before and those few of you that have read my blog before know that I am on a gluten/wheat free journey.  So I made this recipe using King Arthur gluten free flour blend.  My family doesn't really prefer hazelnuts so I opted to use chocolate chips instead and instead of hazelnut liqueur I used Kahlua.  So I guess they are chocolate chip/coffee liqueur biscotti, rather than hazelnut.

When we came home from our vacation we discovered that our air conditioning system was broken so our downstairs has been in the upper 80's for the last few days.  This didn't help my dough, in fact it looked like a pile of melted glop on the baking pan, even though I tried to mold it into a log shape it just spread out on the pan.  So I decided to pop it into the fridge for a while to see if that would help.  I wasn't hopeful and was wondering if it was the flour or the heat, or both.  It had seemed really loose when I mixed it so I had added about a 1/4 cup more flour which helped a little but not much.  When I pulled it out of the fridge I was able to shape it a little.  I had previously read through the tips and wet my hands down so the dough didn't stick as much while I was shaping it.  SO glad I did that!  I immediately popped it into the oven and crossed my fingers.  I wasn't sure if it looked the way it should but it seemed pretty close so I went with it.  I let it cool for about 10 mins and sliced away with a bread knife.  Then I put them back in the oven  for about 12 minutes and what I ended up with looked quite a bit like biscotti!!  I was so happy I didn't have to start from scratch since I had left it to the last minute!!

The hubs tried it and the first comment was "it doesn't even taste gluten free".  I take that as success, for those of you who have attempted gluten free cooking, it's not always a success.  :/ 

I boiled the kettle and made myself a nice cup of tea in my new Alice in Wonderland teacup (we vacationed in Florida and visited WDW while we were there).  The biscotti went quite nicely with my English breakfast tea :)  I am sure it would be great with coffee as well. 

I hope you enjoyed your biscotti as much as I did mine.  Thanks for reading :)