GF Lemon Pecan Biscotti

These GF Lemon Pecan Biscotti which are flecked with lemon zest and crunchy from crushed pecans, can make your snow days so much sweeter.  It is a delicious recipe is adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

A few weeks ago, these GF Lemon Pecan Biscotti, made a snow day much sweeter. My sister her husband and kids had come to visit us out here in the boondocks.  Well the night before they planned to leave we had one of the snow falls that made up part of our record year. Stuck in the house because of icy roads and drivers who didn’t want to drive in the snow, we read, played games and made these biscotti. Needless to say we ate a lot too!

For breakfast on the second day, the Papa Bear dunked a piece of biscotti in his milky coffee. He smiled at me devilishly. And then he made the sad face when I told him that he had eaten the last slice. 

So I made another batch for them to take home.

GF Lemon Pecan Biscotti Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup almond flour
• 1/4 cup sorghum flour
• 1/4 cup tapioca flour
• 1/4 cup potato starch
• 1/4 cup sweet rice flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 3/4 cup crushed pecans (I put whole pecans in a bag and smashed them with a rolling pin)

Directions:

1. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicon baking sheet and set aside
2. Place on oven rack in the middle of you oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
3. Sift each of the flours through a fine-mesh sieve into a large bowl. Sift the almond flour particularly well, pushing the last of it through the sieve with the bottom of a heavy glass. Toss in the baking powder, xanthan gum, and salt. Stir all the ingredients together. Sift the dry ingredients through the sieve again, which will make them one flour.
4. Place the softened butter in your stand mixer, with the paddle attachment. Start the mixer, beating the butter, and then pour in the sugar. Cream them together until they are smooth, about 3 minutes. Plop in the eggs, one at a time, and continue beating, until the mixture is lovely and fluffy. Toss in the lemon zest and mix. Reduce the mixer speed to as low as it goes.
5.  Sift the dry ingredients into the creamed butter and sugar, 1/3 cup at a time, allowing the mixer to run in between batches. When you have finished, the dough will be soft and gathering around the paddle attachment.
6.  Grab half the dough with your hands and shape it into a long, low log on the baking sheet. Aim for a rough approximation of a log, a little squat and comfortingly uneven. Form a log with the rest of the dough and place it on the baking sheet.
7.  Slide the baking sheet into the oven, on the middle rack. Bake the biscotti until the biscotti logs are golden and somewhat firm, but still somewhat soft, about 15 minutes.
8. Take the baking sheet out of the oven and allow the biscotti to cool for 10 minutes. Move them to a cooling rack and let them cool for least 30 minutes.
9.  When the biscotti are entirely cool to the touch, move the biscotti logs to a cutting board.  Using serrated knife make slices on the bias, all down the logs. Be gentle. This is a delicate operation.
10. Stand the biscotti slices on their squat bottoms, on the baking sheet. Slide the baking sheet back into the oven. Bake the biscotti until they are unequivocally browned and crunchy, about 15 minutes.
11. Cool them entirely before attempting to eat.
12. Store in air tight container to maintain freshness

These GF Lemon Pecan Biscotti are even better the second day than they were on first eating. Make enough that you will have more to eat with coffee on a languorous morning. You can easily double this recipe.

Use this recipe as a template and play with the ingredients to make other biscotti. I'm thinking about cardamom and dried sour cherry biscotti, myself!

If you want to make these GF Lemon Pecan Biscotti a bit easier to make, you could substitute a good GF flour mix.  If you cant find one at your local market check out what is on line.