Biscotti di Regina: Attempt #1

Every holiday season my brother-in-law has given us the most wonderful Biscotti di Regina from his neighborhood Brooklyn bakery. These cookies, also known as Queen's Biscuits, are classic Italian cookies with a sweet, cake-like texture with a crispy coating of sesame seeds. They are a traditional Italian accompaniment to wine or coffee.

This year, after finishing the entire box he gave us, I decided I'd start a quest to try to make these on my own. I took a recipe from allrecipes.com and made my first try today. The resulting cookies are quite good but definitely don't compare to the Brooklyn cookies!

I used the following recipe and have noted below where I will change the recipe next time to try to achieve a more 'Brooklyn-like' cookie:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups AP Flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1.5 tsp. baking powder
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground cardamom (I felt the cardamom flavor was much too strong with just 1/4 tsp; next time I'll halve this to 1/8 tsp.)
• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp lemon extract (next time I'll replace this with vanilla extract)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds
• 1/2 cup heavy cream (the recipe did not call for this but I used it for brushing on the cookie for browning purposes)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees
• Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cardamom in a large bowl. Cut shortening in with a pastry blender until the size of small peas (next time I'll cut in the shortening until my mixture looks like cornmeal; some of the cookies had bites of crisco the size of small peas!)
• Stir in the egg, lightly beaten with flavoring extract. Stir in milk one tablespoon at a time, mixing after each addition.
• Break dough off in small pieces and roll hands to form a log about 1.5" long. Flatten slightly and roll in sesame seeds (here is where I brushed it with the heavy cream)
• Place on parchment lined cookie sheet about 3/4" apart. Bake for 12 - 15 minutes until lightly browned.