DISCLAIMER: If you don’t like getting your hands dirty, this isn’t the recipe for you. 

Mi dispiace, Mom. Now that I’ve convinced you to share the recipe with me, I’m sharing it with ALL the people. (Also, sorry Nonna and Great Grandma) 

I’ve been eating these cookies for 35 years, probably before I was really supposed to have food, even. Anytime I smell them baking, I’m immediately transported back to the little metal table in my great grandmother’s upstairs apartment, sitting with a huge glass of espresso-spiked milk and one of these cookies in front of me. That’s not an exaggeration. 

This is the first time I’ve been allowed to even read the piece of paper with the recipe on it. I don’t even know where my mom keeps it in the house, because it’s not in her recipe box. I, on the other hand, just don’t believe in keeping things a secret - I don’t have any kids to raise under the impression that being Sicilian is the greatest thing on Earth, and while my step-kids are amazing and love baking, I’m pretty sure their mom (and my husband) would be weirded out by me doing that. #sicilian #canthelpmyself

Anyways, I still wasn’t able to actually do the baking here, because everything I tried to do was heavily scrutinized. Apparently I don’t know how to properly mix sugar and eggs together with a fork. I’m also ridiculous for calling out the use of margarine and the lack of salt in the recipe, or for suggesting we add more almonds or use pistachios. Allora…

This is a long one, because my mom refused to use a mixer and hand mixes the dough on the counter like it’s pasta. 

Ingredients:

• 7 cups flour
• 6 large eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 6 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup sliced almonds
• 1 1/2 teaspoons anise extract OR 1/2 teaspoon anise oil
• 1 stick margarine (for greasing the cookie sheets) (yeah, I know)

Kitchen tools to make your life easier:

Hands….? 
Bench scraper
Sifter
Two cookie sheets
Counter space 

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. 

Prep your wet ingredients: Add the 6 eggs to a bowl and whisk with a fork (my mother was clear about not using a whisk here). Add the sugar, oil, and anise (extract or oil), and stir to combine. Again, she was very clear about not whipping it, like I would normally do for cookies. No fluffy fat/sugar combos in this recipe. 

Prep your dry ingredients: Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Keep about a half cup of extra flour handy for when you’re mixing the dough. 

Toast the nuts: Spread the sliced almonds on a cookie sheet and toast them in the oven until they’re just starting to turn golden. Take them out of the oven, and put them aside. 

Grease your pans: Prep the cookie sheets by rubbing margarine all over them and up the sides, in a pretty thick manner, but so you can still mostly see through it. Make sure you get the corners and edges really well. 

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Now, if you’ve ever made pasta, the next part will seem familiar. Pour about 2/3rds of the flour onto the counter, and make a well in the center. Pour about 1/3 of the wet ingredients into the well, and start to combine the ingredients using your hands. As the dough starts to form, slowly add more liquid and flour in alternating phases until it’s all combined. You can use the bench scraper to scrape the dough off the counter, and it should come together into a ball that doesn’t stick to the counter, but isn’t necessarily dry. If it’s super sticky, add a little of that reserved four that I mentioned before. The key here is making the dough come together, but you don’t want to get a bunch of air into it. It should be really dense. Air = bubbles in your cookies. 

Here’s an entire series of photos to demonstrate what it should look like:

OK, now that the dough has come together the next thing is rolling it out into a long snake, about 2-3 feet in length. Then use your hands to split open the dough, long-ways, and pour the almonds inside. Close it back up, and then fold into thirds and kneed. Do this about 3-4 times until the almonds are completely incorporated. I asked why we didn’t add the almonds from the beginning, and apparently this is a stupid question. #sicilianmoms

Put some warm water in a bowl and put it somewhere you can easily reach it. Roll the dough into a long snake on the counter, about 4 feet in length. Cut into 4 equal pieces and place 2 on each cookie sheet, long-ways, in opposite corners. Wet your hands in the bowl, and then use your wet hands to push the dough into the entire length of the cookie sheet, making sure to push out any air that may have made its way inside. Make sure it’s completely smooth on top - we’re basically looking for both cookie sheets to have two long, equal-sized loaves of dough, pushed into the corners/edges of their side of the cookie sheet, with a divide in the middle (you want to keep a few inches between them). (See below for photos, because this is a weird thing to explain.)

Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes, or until the loaves are golden brown around the edges and starting to pull away from the sides. If you put both of them in at the same time, you’ll want to switch oven racks about half-way through to ensure even cooking for both. 

Remove from the oven, turn off the oven (don’t forget that, or you’ll totally screw yourself here), and using a bread knife, make even-sized slices of cookies. When they’re all sliced, turn them on their sides, pile them onto one cookie sheet, and put them back in the oven. Leave them there, overnight, to completely dry out - hence the name biscotti (twice-baked). 

When they’re done, you can dip them into chocolate and cover them with sprinkles, or just eat them plain. They’re amazing in coffee (especially coffee spiked with frangelico or amaretto or something like that). 

Hope you like them!