tuesdays with dorie / baking with julia: hazelnut biscotti
I don’t just like biscotti, I love it. With a decent Italian bakery within walking distance of my house, I seldom make them myself. A fix is always in range. When I saw that this week’s selection for Tuesdays with Dorie/Baking with Julia was Hazelnut Biscotti, I had to try it. This recipe was from Alice Medrich, the renowned San Francisco area baker. I have admired and earmarked many Alice Medrich recipes in the past, but never actually made one. I am, after all, more of a cooker than a baker. So, an attempt at Alice’s biscotti was made.
The first bonus from this recipe was the genius technique for removing the stubborn skins from the hazelnuts. I must have seen the episode where Alice baked with Julia on the PBS series, because I have these instructions scrawled on a piece of a paper that I’ve referred to in the past. Who would think that boiling hazelnuts with baking soda and water would make the job so easy? The water gets rather gross, and you have to use a pot big enough that the icky water doesn’t boil over (voice of experience), but other than that, this is a method to use again and again. I wonder whether it works on almonds too.
Naked (Blanched) Hazelnuts
The batter itself was different than biscotti recipes I’ve made before. I seem to make a different recipe every time, but all of them typically call for oil or butter. This recipe has no additional fat beyond the eggs. I stirred it by hand, mixing the flour mixture in to the egg mixture, kneading the last of the flour in by hand.
Just as with other biscotti, the sticky dough is shaped with floured hands into logs and baked once.
After a brief cool (so the logs can be handled comfortably, I assume), the logs are sliced, and the slices are baked again. Biscotti does mean twice baked, after all.
This is where the second bonus of the recipe comes in. Rather than baking the slices on a cookie sheet, Alice has us bake the cookies on cooling racks placed directly on the oven rack. This lets the air move around the entire cookie as it bakes, eliminating the need for the flipping over step. Taking the rack back out of the oven was a little tricky, but well worth the inconvenience. While I might have slightly overcooked the ones on the bottom oven rack, I will use this technique again.
The cookies are wonderfully crisp. I’ve only eaten a few “straight” so far, but I will dip them in my tea for a snack later today. I will definitely make these again, maybe trying almonds (swapping amaretto for the frangelico) or other nuts with the appropriate liqueur. I can’t wait to see what the other bakers have been inspired to do with this one. You can check their links here.
For the recipe, you can visit this week’s hosts Jodi at Homemade and Wholesome and Katrina at Baking and Boys!
Happy 4th of July to all! This all-American holiday is among my favorites though it brings to mind a celebration of freedom throughout the world.
June Bee Update
If you’ve been following my bee adventures, you’ll notice that I’ve been quiet about the bees for a long time. As you might have read, my last hive opening was less than successful. The ending wasn’t happy for me. I was stung across the thighs more than a dozen times. I was also stung on my foot, through my sock, once. My foot was so swollen that I couldn’t wear shoes for several days, and I made another trip to the doctor. (While not systemically allergic, I suffer from a Large Localized Reaction from bee stings, just as I always have from mosquitoes and spiders.)
I thought the bees’ temper would subside, but each time I changed the feeder, now on the front of the hive, they were still pissed with me. I was finding that I could no longer refill the feeder without full body armor. I started approaching the hive stealthily from the rear, and they still buzzed around me before I touched a thing. To make matters worse, the bees seemed to be getting hungrier, and the feeder needed filling every other day. Needless to say, my trauma was more lasting than I anticipated.
The hive continued to buzz away busily, seemingly healthy and strong. I was hesitant to open things up and confirm. In mid-June, just as I arrived home from work, Howard and Bella were playing in the yard, no where near the feeder, and some bees were buzzing them. As I was helping Howard get Bella into the house with the briefest of door openings, I was stung again on the bare skin of my foot. Another several days without shoes.
Even as a novice beekeeper, from everything I’ve read about bees, this aggressive behavior is just not normal. Howard gently suggested that beekeeping might not be the right hobby for me. As disappointed as it made me, I was starting to agree.
Since then, my friend Laury and I attended a meeting of the Middlesex County Beekeepers’ Association. There, we met other beekeepers, both novices like us and more experienced ones. When I shared my tale of woe, they gave two suggestions. The first, was to change the feeder location from the front, back to the top, or to stop feeding altogether. Feeding from the front can attract robber bees which will make a hive’s bees very protective.
The second idea, which is more involved, is to requeen the hive. If the behavior is genetic, all the eggs from my current queen could have the same nasty disposition. By changing the queen, in about a month, new bees with different genetics will start to populate the hive. Option #2 is more intimidating because I have to find a new queen (which I can buy, it’s not like I have to search the wild). Then I have to locate my existing queen in the hive and kill her. Finally, I introduce the new queen into the hive as I did when I first set up the hive.
My immediate course of action was the easier one. The bees emptied the feeder, so I just took it away. Now, a bit of “wait and see” to find out whether they will mellow.
Along with the time to stop feeding is the time to add another box of frames that, once filled, will be “honey for me”. If I wanted to add the box, there was no avoiding at least opening the hive up because I had to move the inner cover above the new honey super.
I was home alone, so it’s debatable whether it was a wise decision to proceed, but I wanted to face my fears and move on to the next phase of beekeeping. I suited up: the hooded jacket, the gloves, two pairs of socks, and rubber bands around my jeans. My cell phone was stashed in my jacket pocket, though now that I think about it, I wouldn’t be able to dial without removing my gloves. (Note to self: next time, use the cordless house phone.)
I’m happy to report that it was a small victory for me! I creeped though the bushes to the back of the hive, and the bees ignored me. I smoked the entrance and under the lid. I lifted the lid, no reaction. I even pried off the inner cover, and the bees were mellow. I peeked at a few of the frames. All were built out with wax. There were bees, capped brood, eggs, and honey. I was nervous to linger and didn’t spend any more time looking than that. I slid the new box on top, replaced the inner cover and lid, and walked away. The bees didn’t seem to even notice I was there. What a relief! Maybe the bees were getting robbed or maybe it was the time of day, but I feel much better about whatever’s next.
Alone, with the anxiety I had, it was impossible to photograph what I saw inside the hive. You’re just getting a shot of the (now) three-story hive. Maybe next time, Howard will be able to take pictures of the activity. Until then…
A Plateful of Happiness 