CHOCOLATE CASHEW BISCOTTI

What are your desert island foods? Let’s say you only get three—and let’s pretend, for the sake of this exercise, that we can abandon all ideals of nutrition and health (by which I mean, you don’t need to pick the three that would actually best keep you alive for the rest of your days).

My answer would have been different over the years, and each one serves as a barometer for various phases of my life, the foods themselves signaling of a deluge of memories and moments.

For example, the summer after freshman year in college I would have said: wild New Hampshire blueberries, Ben and Jerry’s Black and Tan ice cream, and the turkey and havarti sandwich from the Holderness general store. If I were allowed four, I would have added Long Trail Ale’s Blackbeary Wheat. [And mom’s chocolate biscotti.]

The next summer it would have been key lime pie, the veggie wrap from Three Sisters on Block Island, and crusty baguette dipped in butter, swiped from the warming drawer in the corner of the kitchen of the beachside restaurant where I worked bussing tables. (That kitchen was hot and loud and all the cooks would be sweating and shouting and teasing anyone who happened to walk through. I’d duck my head in, skirt the edge of the hot line, narrowly avoiding the fryer station, to where the bread was kept. I’d twist off three slices and eat them hungrily in the cramped hallway outside the bar before heading back into the crush of dinner service.) [And mom’s chocolate biscotti.]

Sophomore year of college, it would have been beer, beer, and vodka mixed with cranberry juice. Just kidding! (Sort of). It would have been a romaine salad from the campus center with ranch dressing and chickpeas and croutons from a bag, coconut sorbet from the Bent Spoon, and oversized black and white cookies painted with sugary-sweet frosting, the white half dyed an unnaturally bright orange in honor of our college colors. Or maybe sushi drowned in soy sauce, fistfuls of yogurt-covered pretzels eaten late at night in the dim light of the library’s reading room while frantically trying to finish a geology paper, and vanilla soft serve ice cream from the dining hall. [And mom’s chocolate biscotti.]

After college, it would have been Breyer’s Neapolitan ice cream, my mom’s summer soup (a veritable symphony of summer vegetables all simmered together), and saltine crackers in the hot months; in the fall and winter, it would be bowls of quickly stirred together Rice Krispie treats (no need to stand on ceremony and shape them into squares), Pacifica boxed butternut squash soup, and homemade biscuits in the colder ones. [And mom’s chocolate biscotti.]

What else? In second grade it would have been sliced green beans with buttery brown rice, Stoned Wheat Thins, and warm homemade applesauce doused in cold, thick cream from our Jersey cow. [And mom’s chocolate biscotti.]

In tenth grade I’d have chosen brown sugar Pop-Tarts (a broken half wheedled from a friend before soccer practice, since classic junk food decidedly did not ever make an appearance in the lunchboxes of the Harwood girls), a tie between a pan of my mom’s sticky orange sweet rolls and her cheddar drop biscuits, and a pasta dish she used to make on weeknights with cream, peas, broccoli, and bacon. [And mom’s chocolate biscotti.]

Today I’d say pizza with garlic ricotta, basil, peaches, and bacon. Crispy mushrooms, tossed in olive oil and roasted at 410 degrees until golden, then piled on top of salad like croutons. Green goddess chicken salad.

And—wait for it—mom’s chocolate biscotti.

My ardor for these biscotti has never waned. (And yes, I do need to use an old-fashioned romance word like ardor in order to do my feelings justice.) I’ve loved them throughout childhood, despite the fact that I’d consider them a decidedly adult cookie—they’re very crunchy and dry and not particularly sweet, as cookies go. They should pale in comparison to brownies and chocolate chip cookies and frosted sugar cookies and cake, but they don’t. I’d choose them over anything, any day, hands down.

I’ve had them shipped to me in shoeboxes all over the country, from New Jersey to Manhattan to Maine and beyond. (The sight of an Aasics Gel Cumulus shoebox will forever make my heart race—those are my mom’s sneakers of choice, and nearly always her preferred package for biscotti.)

They’re one of the hardest things to replicate—I can make them successfully but they never taste just like hers. Just this morning, one of my sisters and I had a lengthy conversation about what makes hers better. Crunchier? Lighter? Sweeter? We can’t put our finger on it. I think it’s just a mother thing. Maybe in 30 years, I’ll learn.

But I have learned to come pretty close. The recipe isn’t complicated but you have to follow a few specific techniques. If you don’t, they will not work. I’m sorry but this is just the truth! So read the following tips carefully—and know that it might take a few attempts to master it:

1. These are made in the traditional Italian way, meaning no butter or oil. The fat comes only from the eggs, so they aren’t “cookie-like” as so many American biscotti is. They’re crisp and incredibly crunchy and wonderful dunked in milk. In fact, milk is pretty much mandatory here.

2. The secret to the crunchy texture lies entirely in air. There is a little leavener in the recipe, but the volume in the batter comes from beating the eggs with the sugar for a long time—much longer than you think. You have to start with warm eggs (more on that below) and you have to beat the eggs and sugar together in a stand mixer on high speed for almost 10 minutes. This seems too long, I know! But it works. The mixture will get pale and fluffy and should nearly triple or quadruple in volume.

3. Use warm eggs. Warming the eggs will make it easier to beat all that air into the batter—my mom always puts her eggs in a bowl of very hot tap water for about 5 minutes.

4. Preserve the volume! After you’ve whipped all that air into the eggs and sugar, you don’t want to deflate it. Instead of just dumping the dry ingredients in, you need to sift them over the egg/sugar mixture, then VERY gently fold them in using a rubber spatula. You’ll see how the batter looks mousse-like and airy as you fold in the flour etc. This takes practice and patience—just turn the bowl a quarter turn with each fold and don’t despair and rush it. It’ll take almost 30 turns (my mom can no doubt do it in about five, but we’re not at that level); any fewer and you’ll risk stirring too much and deflating the batter.

5. Don’t overbake them! The first bake is short—only 20 minutes or so. Then you let them cool and you slice them, then you slide them back into the oven and immediately turn it off, and let them cool. WORD TO THE WISE: Do as my mom does and put a post-it note on the turned-off oven saying “BISCOTTI”. Otherwise, you’ll do what we’ve all done, and preheat the oven for its next use before remembering what’s inside, and you’ll burn them to a crisp.

6. I’ve used cashews here, but my mom uses pecans or sometimes walnuts. Use what you like best!

7. Words can only explain so much. Try and reference my photos for visual cues, and practice! The directions will mean much more once you get a feel for the batter.

Chocolate Cashew Biscotti
Makes about 3 dozen biscotti

5 large eggs
1 1/4 cups (247g) sugar
1 3/4 cups (210g) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (42g) cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (113g) cashews, chopped roughly

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Place the eggs in a bowl of very hot tap water and let them sit for about 5 minutes—you want the eggs to be slightly warmed.

Crack the warmed eggs into the bowl of a stand mixer and add the sugar. Beat on high speed using the whisk attachment for 5 to 10 minutes—it’ll seem like a very long time but don’t cut it short. Over time, you’ll see the mixture change color, becoming a very pale yellow and nearly tripling or quadrupling in volume. It should be fluffy and thick and mousse-like; when you raise the whisk, the mixture should fall slowly in thick ribbons.

Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and place a sieve over the bowl. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt gently into the bowl. Using a rubber spatula, very gently fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture, taking care to turn the bowl constantly.

The key here is to avoid deflating the egg mixture as much as possible. You’ve just beaten a ton of air into the eggs, and you want to preserve that volume—it’s what will keep the biscotti light and crunchy instead of dense and heavy.

Keep folding, turning the bowl a quarter turn each time, until no dry streaks remain. This should take at least 20 or 30 turns—that’s okay! That means you’re doing it slowly and carefully enough.

Very gently fold in the nuts.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop half of the batter out onto each sheet. Using wet hands, gently shape the batter into a long oval, about 5” wide at most at the widest part.

Bake the biscotti for about 15 to 20 minutes—take them out as soon as the surface just begins to spring back when you touch it lightly.

Let the biscotti cool for at least 15 minutes: do NOT turn off the oven!

Once cooled, slice the logs into thin slices. Arrange all of the slices on the two sheets, laying each piece on its side.

Put the baking sheets with the sliced biscotti back into the oven and immediately turn off the oven.

Let them stay in the oven until the oven is fully cooled down—the cookies will crisp up as they sit.