Lenox Almond Biscotti : remembering Julia

For the joy of French’s memory, I went cinema to Julie & Julia. I was expecting some fresh air, good laugh and warm-hearted. Indeed the movie showed most of those, which make foodie like me in happy tears. Well, food just the background but the story about the journey of two women, did inspire me, by Julia and Julie for their own time tunnel.

I grew fondness of French baking not trough Julia Child, but merely from contemporary Dorie Greenspan. Dorie worked for Julia during PBS’s Baking with Julia, wrote a book to accompany the program. I haven’t dared to start ‘proper’ Cordon Bleu regime to build my baking skill. For the confidence side, Julia might say, “Never apologized.”

Since I killed cable subscription, I became involve in most PBS cooking such Jacques Pepin –who turned out to be Julia’s friends. I found him very forgiving, clear description and very technical. Somehow he reminded me with father in law in the kitchen. They are extraordinary, with passion of making food looks simple and doable.


These biscotti just another sample of over-expected. I found the recipe very easy and straightforward, but turned out to be lots messy than usual. The dough seemed too short, in resulted just crumbly. Through TWD, more people found similar difficulties. Dough became to runny, taking extra time to bake and shape not easy to work with. I followed all the steps in moderate, while reducing sugar contents is more likely give an impact of workability while whisking eggs, sugar and butter might the key. It needs slightly longer to let expand and bind the dry ingredients.

I added dry cherry which is my favorite because of sourness. Some people suggested to bake in higher temperature at first 15-20 minutes then reduce into 350F second bake. Also leave the dough at fridge for 1-2hours will make easy to split into two or three dough. As Julia said to never apologized, I guarantee that this biscotti taste like heaven.


Recipe can found here or here. This site is a brilliant step by step of making biscotti with pictures!