Chocolate biscotti

I refuse to buy cookies any more. Unless in Italy. There, they have aisles of good cookies. They call them "breakfast cookies". Which means healthy, good for kids. Yeah, right, just like Nutella. Do you believe it?

The point is: yes, they have sugar, they have flour...a couple of other things and that's about it. They come in big yellow bags, with pictures of milk, grains, honey, cocoa, blue sky and sunshine. I'm sold. We buy them, we eat them, we enjoy them.

When back home, I make them. Just like I did yesterday. I went to an Italian websites for help. I found the recipe, it looked clear, the cookies looked good and I had just enough butter in the fridge.

Which I took out right away. The recipe called for 40 g of room temperature butter and I know for my mixer that's not enough. The attachment to beat the butter wouldn't reach it. So I had to use my muscle power: my legs to hold the bowl, and my arms to work the butter.

I really did the minimum beating, just enough for the butter and sugar to combine, no sweat. The rest was really easy. I got a bit distracted during the process and misread the cocoa amount. I put too much, so then I tried to separate it from flour, which was really painful.

Forming the sausage (the Italians used that term) was kind of different. But it's much easier and faster then rolling out the dough and cutting out the cookie shapes.

At the end my timer broke down, so I tried to use my phone but I didn't really know where there is timer on my phone and the cookies were already in the oven.

But 10 minutes later, the house smelled like chocolate and the cookies came out beautiful! On the outside they have a sort of dusty chocolate color, on the inside they have deep chocolate color. That is really attractive. And they are soft, just like Hania ordered. They feel really good in your hand. She said there were the best cookies I've ever made. I love her!
Not too sweet, full of chocolate taste, just that, simple. Just like in Italy.

They are all gone today. Hania took the last four to school.

Recipe adapted from Giallo Zafferano

40 g (2 1/2 Tablespoons) butter
25 g (1/4 cup) cocoa powder (dark)
115 g (4 ounces) dark chocolate
120 g (3/5 cup) flour
1 g (1/4 teaspoon) baking powder
2 eggs plus 1 yolk
100 g (1/2 cup) sugar

Melt the chocolate in a water bath. (Using two pots, fill the bigger one with water, put the chocolate in the smaller one.  Put the smaller one inside the bigger one and melt the chocolate while heating the water). Keep stirring the chocolate. It will melt faster and it won't get so hot. Let it cool.

Sift flour, cocoa and baking powder together.

Beat the butter with sugar in a bowl. Add the eggs and the yolk. Combine it. Add the melted chocolate. Mix it all together. Add the flour mixture. Work it till combined.

Put the dough on a plastic wrap with some flour (extra) on it to prevent sticking. Roll it with your hands to make it look like a sausage (you don't have to be exact) about 4 cm in diameter. Put it in the fridge for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 180 C/355 F.

Take your cookie dough bar out of the plastic wrap. Slice it into 1/2-1 cm thick pieces. The dough will stick to the knife, and the pieces won't be round, but that's ok. Transfer the cut pieces onto the baking sheet lined with a parchment paper. One sheet should be enough.

Put the cookies in the hot oven for 10 minutes. You don't have to rotate the sheet during baking. They are not there long enough to make a difference.

Don't go over the 10 minutes. They will seem raw at first, but after cooling off, they are perfect.
Take them out and let them cool on a cooling rack (just like on the picture).

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I made the cookies again the day after. I doubled the proportions, I could work the butter with the mixer. Much easier. 
My friend just rolled little balls in her hands with the dough. Even better!