I seem to be into adapting recipes this week, which is one of the many joys of baking. Once you have a good base, you can tweak the flavors to come up with a range of tasty options. Swap out spices or extracts, toss in some toasted pecans, almonds, or flavored chips, and you’ll have a totally new treat to share.
This butter pecan biscotti uses the base from my fall spice biscotti, omitting the spice and adding toasted chopped pecans and butterscotch chips instead. It’s a wonderful recipe, yielding a crunchy-yet-soft-inside treat, which is just how I like my biscotti. This was a big hit in Mike’s office, where his coworkers proclaimed it delicious.
Ingredients
- 2 cups flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 8 tablespoons butter, softened
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon butterscotch extract*
- 2/3 cup toasted pecans, finely chopped
- 2/3 cup butterscotch chips
*If you don’t have butterscotch extract, don’t worry. You can omit it, or swap it for vanilla extract.
Preparation
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a mixing bowl fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well and scraping the sides of the bowl between each. Add butterscotch extract and beat to combine. Add flour in two batches and mix to completely combine, then stir in pecans and butterscotch chips.
Dust your counter top with flour and turn dough out; it will be very sticky. Sprinkle with flour and knead gently to bring dough together; you can add a few more tablespoons of flour without having to worry that your dough will be too tough. Roll into a log about 16 inches long, then divide the log in half. Carefully place each log on your baking sheets (I use my bench knife to help with this); flatten to about 1 inch thickness. Note: the logs will spread a good deal when you bake them, so make sure you place them in the middle of your baking sheets.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the edges are completely set and the middles are firm; I baked mine on two different racks in the oven, which I don’t necessarily recommend but did this time in order to save some time. If you do this, you’ll want to swap your baking sheets about halfway through baking to prevent the bottom of the bottom-baking log from burning.
Allow to cool for 10 minutes, then carefully move the logs to a cutting board and slice them into 1-inch slices. Carefully place slices back on the parchment-lined baking sheets (they will be almost cake-like at this point, so handle them gently). Bake on one side for an additional 7-9 minutes, then flip and bake on the other side for 7-9 minutes. Again, if you’re baking both sheets at once like I did, you’ll want to swap the top and bottom sheets to prevent the bottom-baking ones from over-browning.
Remove from oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet(s) for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container; makes 16 slices.
amy bakes in the 'burgh 