Return of the LazyCook - 'spiced biscotti with marsala mascarpone'

Yes, we're back with an Italian bakery classic (and our favorite coffee food). The recipe is from 'Marie Claire food+drink' - a great recipe book for dinner parties, cocktails and of course afternoon tea parties. 

So we began with preheating the oven to 180 degrees and mixing the flour, sugar, baking powder, dried fruits, almonds, lemon zest, cardamom and cinnamon in a large bowl. 

In the meantime my favorite assistant was beating the three eggs!

i'm getting help from little miss lazycook

beating the eggs..

We made a well in the flour mix, added the beaten eggs and made a sticky dough. Then we divided this (very) sticky dough into three pieces of about 4 cm in diameter (as it says in the recipe). We put these logs onto the baking tray lined with baking paper (leaving space between them) and baked for 30 minutes. 

don't forget to leave space between the logs

After 30 minutes, we removed from the oven (and reduced the oven temperature to 140 degrees) and allowed to cool, then cut each of the loaves into thin slices with a sharp bread knife. We laid the biscuits on the baking tray and returned them to the oven for about 10 minutes, turning the biscuits once. (In the recipe it says 20 minutes but they turned dark and very crispy in 20 minutes in one of my trials).

slice and put them back to oven but make sure not to overcook

Perfect with the first coffee of the day...

my favorite couple 

However, for after-dinner, we recommend the Marsala mascarpone dip. Supermarket price for Marsala wine is overly expensive for the dip! We used Misket, a demi-sec Turkish wine and it turned out well but next time we'll go for a sweet wine. For the dip we mixed the mascarpone cheese, wine and the caster sugar until smooth.

This was one of the favorites in the "Weekend Bakery" event in Galata House last sunday besides many amazing muffins, tarts and sandwiches. A blog post will follow about the event..And hopefully many many happy posts..It's good to be back!


INGREDIENTS:
- 2 cups plain flour
- 1 cup caster sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 100 g dried figs, sliced 
- 50 g dried apricots, sliced
(I put around 8 figs and 10 apricots, and I add cranberries if I have at home)
- 150 g slivered almonds (yes when you really put 150 g of almond slices, it prevents the stickiness)
- 2 teaspoons chopped lemon zest
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom (I couldn't find ground cardamom, instead I extract one cardamom seed and put 2-3 of what is inside!)
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 3 eggs, beaten
Marsala-Mascarpone dip
- 200 g mascarpone cheese
- 2 tablespoons sweet Marsala (or any other demi-sec or sweet wine)
- 1 tablespoon caster sugar