Chai biscotti

The other day I was sitting in Starbucks waiting for my friend and I had my favourite drink of Chai Latte and I also treated myself to an almond biscotti. Because my friend was taking forever I started to think about what home made gift I can give my friends for Christmas this year and for a very long time nothing was coming to my mind until it suddenly hit me… Jars of homemade biscotti!!! But what flavour? CHAI BISCOTTI!!

I could bore you with the meaning of word biscotti but I’m sure everyone who watched any cookery tv show has been told that it means twice baked and yes they come from Italy… (Yawn)

To me the exciting part is the Chai part! People sort of know what it is and most importantly many people enjoy it, especially during the festive season but nobody really knows what goes into it?! So the main challenge was to create my very own chai spice mix that will be flavouring the biscotti. Being a huge fan of chai latte I try one every country I visit and by far the best one was in Sweden. In Stockholm there is this chain of beautiful almost boutique coffee shops called espresso house. They served not only the best chai latte but also the best scones. On my last day In Stockholm I bought an instant chai latte powder in one of the Espresso house outlets. To my surprise most of the spices were listed on the box… I thought I am in for a winner here. As it turns out chai is nothing less than:
2 teaspoon of cinnamon
2 teaspoon of ground ginger
1 teaspoon of ground cloves
1 teaspoon of ground cardamom
1 teaspoon of all spice
0,5 teaspoon of ground nutmeg

It’s as easy as that!! I was even happier that all of those spices were on offer in my local Tesco for £0.50. Get them while you can people!!

I have done biscotti in the past and it it’s probably the easiest no fuss recipe that even a toddler baker can make so I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did and hopefully my closest friends will this Xmas!!

Ingredients:

100 g butter
Chai spice mix (I used all of it as I like the strong spicy flavour)
2 eggs
140 g sugar
300 g plain flour
1.50 teaspoon of baking powder

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 175°C. In a smallish saucepan melt the butter together with the chai mix. Set aside to cool. (This is the stage when you really bring up the flavours of your spices make sure you keep your eye on it and take it of the heat immediately after the butter is melted as you don’t want to burn them)

2. Whisk the eggs until combined and add to the spicy butter mix.

3. Mix all the dry ingredients and fold into the wet mixture. When combined fold the dough into 3 long roulades making sure you press out all the air.

4. Place them on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper.

5. Bake on the middle shelve of your oven for 25 minutes. Take out and lower the temperature to 140°C
Cut the roulades into about 1cm slices and place back on the tray. Bake for additional 12-15 minutes until the biscottis are crisp and crunchy.