Annie’s Spent Grain Biscotti

Annie Zipser brought these to the March 2012 meeting and they went fast. Two great recipes to use up your spent grain (or at least some of it).

Spent Grain Coconut Biscotti

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Dried and Milled Spent Grain
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. grated nutmeg
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. coconut extract
1 cup flaked coconut
3 oz. dark or semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, mix together the all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the sugar, eggs, vanilla and coconut extracts. Beat on medium-low speed until thick and smooth, about 2 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, add in the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Fold in the flaked coconut with a spatula.

Turn the dough out onto the parchment-lined baking sheet. Divide into two equal segments and form each into a log 1-inch deep, and approximately 4 inches wide. (Be sure to leave room between the logs as they will spread during baking.)

Bake for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes on a wire rack. Using a serrated knife, cut the logs diagonally into 14-20 slices, depending on thickness. Lay the slices on their sides and bake for 10 minutes. Flip the slices over and bake for 10 minutes more.

Place the chocolate into a heatproof bowl. Microwave in 20 second intervals, stirring in between, until completely melted. Drizzle over the biscotti and allow to cool until the chocolate is set.

Note: I only had ¾ cup of coconut so I added ¼ cup of pecans.  When I made it before I didn’t use pecans and upped the coconut extract to ¾ tsp…and Michael compared it to a Mounds bar.

Spent Grain Cherry/ chocolate chip Biscotti

2 cups all –purpose flour
1 cup dried and milled spent grain
¼ tsp.salt
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 ½ tsp. almond extract
2/3 cup dried cherries
½ cup chocolate chips

1)    Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2)    Lightly spoon flours into dry measuring cups and level with a knife.  Combine flours and salt in a bowl and stir well with a whisk.

3)    Beat sugar and eggs with a mixer at high speed until thick and pale (about 4 minutes).  Add oil and extracts, beating until well blended.  Add flour mixture, beating a low speed just until blended.  Stir in cherries and chocolate chips.

4)    Divide dough in half; turn out onto a baking sheet coated with cooking spray (I used parchment paper).  Shape each portion into a 10 inch long roll and flatten to 1 inch thickness.  Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until lightly browned.  Remove rolls from the baking sheet; cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack.  Reduce oven temp. to 325 degrees.

5)    Cut each roll diagonally into 20 (1/2 inch) slices.  Place slices, cut side down onto baking sheet.  Bake at 325 for 10 minutes.  Turn cookies over and bake an additional 10 minutes (cookies will be slightly soft in the center but will harden as they cool).  Remove from baking sheet and cool completely on wire rack.

Note: I was short of the spent grain on this one so I used ¾ cup of spent grain and 2 ¼ cups of flour.