Toasted Oat and Coconut Biscotti...

While Jeff saved some of those pretzel cookies we made for him to take into the office, they didn't last long and we were raiding the freezer to see if we had anything else to snack on this weekend. Nothing we found sounded too interesting, so some baking was in order this morning!

I thought about what we haven't made lately and it seems it has been awhile since we made ourselves a batch of biscotti! After taking note of what we had handy in the pantry, we ended up with these Toasted Oat and Coconut Biscotti.

What makes these more interesting is taking the time to toast the oats, coconut and pecans before we used them. Besides changing their texture, their flavor is heightened and brought to a new level. I added them all on one of our larger baking sheets, just making sure to keep them in their own spots - you will need to stir them occasionally so they are able to toast evenly. They are ready when the oats are a pale golden, the coconut is well colored and the nuts are very fragrant. If your baking sheet isn't large enough, you can toast the nuts in a skillet on the stove or just re-use the same sheet when the others are done. Since you need to process that trio of toasted dry ingredients until finely chopped, be sure to let all of the ingredients cool down first. The remaining dry ingredients are tossed into the food processor and pulsed in to combine them all together.

To finish creating the dough, the wet ingredients, consisting of light coconut milk, a splash of vanilla and a couple large eggs, are whisked together and added to the dry. Being not as wet as other biscotti, I mixed this dough by hand to gently work the ingredients together - it may seem a little crumbly at first, but it will come together. Formed, baked, sliced and baked again as we normally do (don't forget that spritz of water before slicing - it does make a difference!), the nutty aroma of the slices had us very much in anticipation of them cooling down so we could take a bite.

Since there is no butter or oil, these biscotti are especially crisp (bonus!) and perfect for dunking. The use of coconut in two forms brought a delightful profile, but they don't scream "I'm stuffed with coconut!!!" either. Toasting of the oats and nuts allowed their inner flavor to burst out and flow through the biscotti, making these a bit more rich than they might otherwise be. If you want to take these one step further, dunk the bottoms in a shallow bowl of melted white chocolate or scoop that melted chocolate into a zip-loc bag and drizzle it over the cut sides to add some pizazz!

Recipes
Toasted Oat and Coconut Biscotti