Very Italian Biscottis

I know I shared the Macadamia Studded Biscotti recipe earlier, but if you were patient enough to read through the entire post, you must have noticed how whiny I was with the eggy smell of the biscottis that actually disappeared after 2 days. And if you made it with eggwhites and less sugar, it was nowhere near the original thing. I wanted to share the most original recipe I have ever tried and I googled up recipe after recipe trying to find the original taste. And found the one that I loved. Who cares if it has too carbs or saturated fats? Some originals became memorable only because it was made that way...So three cheers for classics made by Moms, Grand moms and anyone who cooked!
This hard cookie stays good in an airtight container (if not dipped in chocolate, otherwise they disappear like the
And like all Grandma's yummies, this one makes about 80-90 cookies, enough to feed a football team....So make sure you half the recipes or have lots of snackers around!


Ingredients:-
6 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups almonds, roughly chopped
6 fresh eggs
1 cup e.v. olive oil
2 cups sugar
4 tablespoons anise seed, roasted and ground
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Optional Chocolate Icing: 
1 bag of white chocolate morsels

Preparation:-
Heat oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit.  Grind the anise seed finely in a coffee grinder reserved for spices, or with a mortar and pestle. Beat the eggs and oil together until well mixed and lightly frothy, then add sugar and anise. Gently stir all the dry ingredients together and then stir into the wet mix. Stir in the flour, baking powder, salt and almonds and mix (by hand or a spatula) until the dough forms and is slightly sticky but smooth.

Now, divide the dough into six pieces, lightly flour and roll each into a log and roll it out slightly to make  thick, uniform rectangular-ish shapes. Place on two greased or parchment lined baking sheets and bake until they just begin to brown and the center is cooked, for about 25 minutes.

Remove from the oven, lower heat to 300 degrees F and slice them diagonally (about 1/2 inches thick) and place back, cut side down on baking sheet. Bake 10 minutes, flip and bake another 10 minutes or until lightly browned and crisp.

If its still not hard enough, just leave them in the oven, after turning the heat off. But make sure you keep an eye on them and check every 5 minutes to make sure they don't burn or get too browned.

Melt the white chocolate chips in a double boiler/ microwave/fondue pot with a tablespoon or more of shortening, and dip the ends of the biscotti in it and let them firm up on wax paper. To speed up, leave them covered in the refrigerator. You can also fill up the melted chocolate in a zip-loc bag, snip a corner and draw diagonal ribbons on the biscotti. Usually one bag is enough for all the biscottis and any leftovers is always thrown into the waiting mouths of my two chocolate disposal units :-)

Store the biscottis in airtight containers and it sure tastes better with every passing day. Enjoy!