Make Ahead

Hazelnut Biscotti (Tozzetti)

by:
October  1, 2015
3
2 Ratings
Hazelnut Biscotti (Tozzetti)
Photo by Emiko
  • Makes about 30 cookies
Author Notes

In Tuscany, where arguably the most famous biscotti come from, you can find a few types of similar cookies. The most well-known are cantuccini, which are often almond-studded biscotti from Prato, Florence's neighboring city. There are also tozzetti, which can be found in the Etruscan areas of Tuscany's deep south that border Lazio; these cookies sneak in from the province of Viterbo. Finally, there are numerous variations that can be found here and there—like the cantuccini gigliesi from the island of Giglio, where bakeries sell long flat logs of dried fig and dark chocolate filled cantuccini to take home for chopping up.

I usually make cantuccini with almonds, whole, raw and unpeeled, and a splash of vin santo added to the mixture. But now that I live in southern Tuscany, which is closer to Rome than Florence—where it's more common to see hazelnut tozzetti than cantuccini—I've broken my own rules and morphed the recipes together for something that's like cantuccini but with the distinct hazelnuts of tozzetti.

If vin santo isn't available, you can use anything to replace it—any other wine, grappa, sambuca (that anise flavor is quite typical of traditional biscotti); or, if you don't have alcohol, use a splash of water. —Emiko

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • 7 ounces (200 grams) whole hazelnuts
  • 2 1/2 cups (300 grams) flour
  • 3 medium eggs
  • 1 1/4 cups (250 grams) sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 pinch salt
  • zest of 1 lemon
  • 1 shot vin santo or grappa (see headnote)
Directions
  1. Toast the hazelnuts in a moderate oven for about 5 minutes or until they are warm and fragrant. Rub the warm hazelnuts in a tea towel to remove the skins (they don't have to be perfect—a few bits left here and there are fine), then chop about half of them roughly in half.
  2. Sift the flour into a bowl and create a “well” in the center. Crack the eggs into the center and beat them in, incorporating the flour little by little (like you would when making fresh pasta). Add the rest of the ingredients, including the hazelnuts, and mix until just combined.
  3. On a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, shape the dough into two or three logs about 1 1/2 inches (4 centimeters) wide (it may be quite sticky; in this case, do this with 2 spoons, placing blobs into a long, log-like shape). They don’t have to be perfect—they will smooth out and expand a bit in the oven—but do leave plenty of space between logs on the baking sheet.
  4. Bake at 350° F for about 20 minutes, or until golden on top. Remove the biscotti from the oven and, when cool enough to handle but still slightly warm, slice the logs at a 45° angle into cookies about 1/2-inch (1 to 2 centimeters) wide.
  5. Place the sliced biscotti back in the oven for another 10 minutes. Let cool completely. Keep them in an airtight container so they maintain their crunch.
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  • Leigh van Maaren
    Leigh van Maaren
  • Julia Pollack
    Julia Pollack
  • Winness
    Winness
  • Victoria Beninger
    Victoria Beninger
  • The Pontificator
    The Pontificator

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8 Reviews

Leigh V.
Leigh V. February 22, 2021
The finished product of this recipe is good if you can figure out some of the issues with how it's written.

First, in step 2 - incorporating the flour "little by little" -- you need to add the rest of the ingredients well before the eggs are fully incorporated in to the flour. The recipe implies you should be fully incorporating the eggs in to the flour first, which leaves you with a dough that is impossible to add the rest of the ingredients to.

In the ingredients, "1 shot" is not a universal measurement. I found the most success using a double shot - or italian shot - which is 2 ounces. 1 ounce (a standard bartending shot) left me with a dough that was dry, unworkable, and didn't rise.

I finally got the results in the photo when I realized the recipe has some distinct issues by watching youtube videos of other people making biscotti, and baking other biscotti recipes, and what the consistency of my dough should look like and what the technique should be.

I'd suggest rewording step #1 and specifying the grappa requirement in an actual universal measurement (ounces or tablespoons) rather than the highly imprecise measurement that will lead to people in different countries having completely different results in making this recipe.
 
Leigh V.
Leigh V. February 22, 2021
Sorry, rewording step #2.
 
Julia P.
Julia P. February 7, 2017
Hi Emiko, I was wondering if I should change the amount of flour (in weight/mass) that I am using if I want to try this recipe with Italian type 00 flour to try to achieve a texture more like the cookies I've had in Italy. Or do you advise against this and doing the recipe exclusively with regular American all-purpose flour? Will doing so nevertheless achieve an Italian-cookie-like texture? Thanks!
 
Winness
Winness January 16, 2017
Italians do wonderful things with hazelnuts. When I was in Rome and Positano, the only gelato I ordered was nocciola. Panforte, a Sienese fruitcake, is packed with toasted hazelnuts. I will add this biscotti recipe to my rotation. Thanks!
 
Victoria B.
Victoria B. January 15, 2017
Unfortunately didn't work out at all. The sugar didn't dissolve (I guess it's because, according to the recipe, it is added to the dough later) and the logs expanded into a flat shape covering the whole baking sheet.
 
Emiko
Emiko January 15, 2017
There are a number of factors that can cause cookie dough to expand. I make these regularly and have never had the problems you described above, so it could be that they type of sugar you used is quite different, or that the oven was a little too hot or not hot enough. I suspect it could be a combination of things too. David Lebovitz has a very informative post with tips on how to keep cookie dough from spreading here: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/why-do-cookies-spread/
 
Leigh V.
Leigh V. February 22, 2021
I've baked this recipe 3 times now and the commenter is absolutely correct.

The recipe implies that you should fully incorporate the egg in to the flour before adding the sugar. If you do this it will absolutely *not* work, as Victoria said. You end up making a full-on dough before trying to add the rest of the ingredients, and your dough ends up massively overworked and is also why it doesn't rise. I did this on my second attempt besides my intuition not to because my first attempt didn't turn out quite right -- for another issue with the recipe: "a shot" is not a uniform measure. Shots vary from barely half an ounce to 2 ounces of liquid depending on the country. The recipe does not work with 1 ounce of liquid.

The recipe should make it clear that you *start* to incorporate the egg in to the flour and then add the rest of the ingredients before mixing too much. If you do this, it works out fine.
 
The P.
The P. October 17, 2015
Do want. Will make.