Dark Chocolate Almond Biscotti and a Baby Update

I've been inspired by the numerous holiday cookies that have appeared across the blogosphere. Recently I returned from a trip to San Francisco where I encountered a collection of creative gingerbread houses at the Palace Hotel.

Hopefully someday I'll be at a level where I can build a gingerbread house from scratch. In the meantime, I am taking baby steps with this chocolate biscotti, which has been a wonderful accompaniment to my morning beverage. This recipe produces a dark-chocolatey hearty biscotti that is great for dipping into hot chocolate. This recipe was adapted from David Leibovitz. I reduced the amount of flour call for in the original recipe by 1/4 cup because I found the first batch was too dry.

The quality of this biscotti does depend on using high quality chocolate. I used extra dark cocoa powder from Barry Cacao pictured on the left, which as you can see contrasted to the Dutch processed cocoa powder I obtained from Penzey's on the right is much darker. If you had smell-o-vision, you'd be able to inhale the intense, luxurious chocolate aromas from the Barry Cacao cocoa.

Barry Cacao was generously sent to me by El of Fresh New England for a fabulous giveaway I won recently. If you haven't visited El's blog, you're missing out on some of the most gorgeous, exquisite and inspiring desserts on Earth. My big baking project this month will be to tackle El's Ultimate Dark Chocolate Cupcake with Chocolate Ganache. I'm excited!

Dark Chocolate Almond Biscotti

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cups good-quality cocoa powder (I used Barry Cacao)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 large eggs, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup almonds, toasted and very coarsely-chopped

3/4 cup chocolate chips

Method 

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a medium sized bowl sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.
2. In a large bowl, beat together the room temperature eggs, sugar and vanilla extract. Mix in the flour and cocoa mixture in three parts. When the dough is well mixed, fold in the chopped almonds and chocolate chips until the dough is well integrated. 
3. Line the baking sheet with a silpat or parchment paper. Divide the dough in half. 

Makes 40 cookies.

Baby Update
This week marks the midpoint of my pregnancy at 20 weeks, which amazes me how it seems like just yesterday I told everyone that I was expecting. So much has grown and developed over that time. It was an incredibly overwhelming experience to see and hear the baby's heart beat for the first time at 8 weeks. I had no idea that all of the organs, arms and legs would be in place by 12 weeks. Interestingly this baby likes hang out on my left side, probably where the placenta implanted. It even kicks mostly to the left, which is why I joke with my husband that the baby is naturally left-leaning. It's been an amazing to experience all of these changes, it truly feels like small miracles are happening week to week.

Boy or Girl?
Next week we'll receive the most comprehensive view of our baby's development to date and hopefully find out the gender. So far the baby is insisting that we respect its privacy, refusing to budge or even give us an inkling of what he/she is during our monthly doctor visits. Although, I don't mind, we'll eventually find out. I'd love to hear your guess on what we might be expecting next May. The guesses among friends and family have been equally split betwen boy and girl. Perhaps the funniest guess came from a trucker when I was walking up Second Avenue in midtown, who as soon as he saw me declared "Hey, you're having a boy! You're the boyyy-type! Watch, the next time I see you, you'll be pushing a stroller with a boouyyee in it!" I had no idea that truckers cared so much.