[Sca-cooks] Re: Granado's Bizcochos w/ Orange Flower Water

[Louise Smithson]

While i'm good at cooking most stuff pretty intuitively, i haven't 
been baking much for the last few decades and appreciate some 
guidance.

Thanks,

Anahita

-------<original recipe snipped>

I have made quite a few biscotti from Italian books of the period.  They are wierd somewhere between a sponge and a meringue.  The lift comes just from the eggs and sugar being beaten together. (for more on the biscotti I make check out: http://www.geocities.com/helewyse/biscotti.html) .

My take on your recipe and questions based on this experience (and I have made them many, many, many times).

QUESTION 1 - so, i separate 4 eggs - then do i use the whites or the 
yolks in this recipe?

As the recipe later calls for the batter to be as white as possible I would speculate that you use the whites.  I suspect that like Italian, Spanish uses to take as in take to use. 

QUESTION 2 - the sugar, ground - should that be normal granulated 
sugar or powdered sugar?

I have always used normal granulated sugar, you are beating it with eggs, it will dissolve in the eggs.  


QUESTION 3 - how much flour? equal to sugar? half as much? twice as much?

The recipe from scappi calls for 15 eggs 2.5 Italian pound of sugar and 2.5 pounds of flour.  The Italian pound of the time is a little lighter (12 oz) compared to the modern one (16oz).  Check the relationship for the Spanish pound it may be similar or not.  Your ratio would then be 8 whole eggs, 4 egg whites to 1 pound sugar. This will not make a stiff batter as it is very similar to that of the scappi biscotti.  I would suggest the use of an 8 x 12 pan, watch for the use of dark sided metal pans it causes a lot of browning I have had more success with the glass pans. 


QUESTION 4 - how long is half-done? about 15 minutes? I figure the 
loaves should not brown, and should be soft enough to slice...
OK mine bake in a 360 degree oven for about thirty to thirty five minutes until the sponge leaves the side of the pan and is springy.  It is a fairly dry sponge at this point but this doesn't stop the husband from eating the edges I trim off.  I do all cutting and trimming while the dough is still warm.  Then I reduce the oven to 210 and return the biscotti to dry.  I find that cooking them higher than this causes browning rather than drying.  It is also worth remembering that these were probably baked in falling ovens.  I.e. the batter was put in to bake after the bread was taken out.  Then when the batter was cooked it was put back into the same oven.  All the while the temperature of the oven is continuing to fall.  Oh another tip, use parchement to line the baking trays when you are drying the biscotti otherwise they have a tendency to stick. 

Hope this helps,

Helewyse


		
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