This really yummy creation happened completely by accident! I was baking my Spicy Apple, Cinnamon & Nut Cake for a bunch of friends for tea, got far too carried away in conversation (this happens often) and completely forgot about my cake! Luckily it didn't burn, but it had completely lost all its wonderful soft moistness that makes it so perfectly delicious. I was devastated as I HATE wasting anything, especially the possibility of a yummy slice of cake. So nobody got cake with their tea and I tossed and turned most of that night.
At some point in the darkness BISCOTTI popped into my head. As soon as it was light, I ran down to the kitchen and thinly sliced the cake, spread out the thin slices onto baking trays and popped them into a low oven. The house was filled with the MOST incredible smells and after a few hours we had these sweet, crunchy, nutty, fruity biscotti to have with our tea and coffee. This is a mistake I am definitely going to make again! They didn't last a day!
Yield: 20-30 biscotti
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: +- 30 minutes for the cake to bake plus drying out time
*Note: I baked this cake in a bundt cake pan which worked perfectly when slicing into biscotti, but a normal cake pan or even a loaf pan would work really well.
Ingredients:
2 cups cake flour
15ml baking powder
30ml ground cinnamon
2.5ml salt
100g almonds, pecans or walnuts, roasted
182.5ml (3/4 cup) firmly packed brown sugar
375g (about 2 medium to large) Granny Smith apples
*Grate 1/3 of this, squeezing out the excess juice. Core, peel & chop the rest.
125g butter, melted, cooled
2 XL eggs, lightly whisked
185mls (3/4 cup) milk
5ml vanilla essence
To top:
30ml (2 tbsp) treacle sugar
15ml (1 tbsp) lemon juice
5ml (1 tsp) ground cinnamon
Method
- Preheat oven to 180’C.
- Grease a 23cm cake tin and line the base with greaseproof paper.
- Sift flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt together. Stir in the brown sugar, apples and pre-roasted nuts until well combined.
- In a separate bowl whisk together the butter, eggs, milk and vanilla essence.
- Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and stir with a large metal spoon until just combined. It is important that the ingredients are only just combined. If the mixture is over-mixed, the cake will have a tough texture.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre of the mixture comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and allow a few minutes to cool.
- Mix together the topping ingredients.
- Remove the cake and place on a cooling rack. Turn down the oven to around 70'C.
- Immediately brush top of cake with the cinnamon sugar mixture and allow to cool completely.
- Slice cake into 5mm slices. Place onto baking trays - do not overlap the slices.
- Pop the biscotti back into the oven until completely dry and crunchy - probably around 4-5 hours.
Food Love,
Tanya