It seems that the poor old hazelnut is a much unloved nut, having regard to the comments on this week's Tuesday with Dorie/Baking with Julia forum. I had never given it much thought, as hazelnuts are nuts like any other to me, and I rather like them. But there you go - for this week's Baking with Julia recipe, Hazelnut Biscotti, hosted by Jodi of Homemade and Wholesome and Katrina of Baking and Boys, you will see many variations and substitutions, so that non-filbert-o-philes can still make it.
This recipe taught me a new way of skinning hazelnuts - by boiling them with bicarbonate of soda for a few minutes then running them under cold water. It is a pretty neat technique, and much easier and cleaner than roasting them off.
The skinned hazelnuts are then toasted in the oven, before being chopped and added to the easy peasy biscotti dough. Alice Medrich's original recipe included Frangelico in the dough - I used Kahlua instead, because that is what I had to hand.
I was pleasantly surprised by these biscotti - normally I am not a fan, but this recipe made the nicest biscotti I have ever tasted. Normally, I find eating biscotti rather like chewing on bits of old cardboard, but these were tasty.
To see what the other BWJ members thought of these biscotti, and for the variations they chose, visit the LYL section of the website.
