I tried biscotti fist time at Craftsman&Wolves. I took some home from work and brought to Adult School for my classmates. Mary said it was suppose to be dunked in milk. I remember this name and thought it was a name of a particular cookie: long oval, dry, crunchy.
I found more interesting things about the name when I started to make it. In my Italian baking book, I found biscotti simply means cookie in English. There are more than ten kinds of different biscotti. This long oval dry crunchy one carry the specific name Biscotti di Prato or Cantucci di Prato, which means almond cookie from Prato.
To make biscotti di Prato, we make logs about ten inches long and one inch in diameter, press the top flat, then bake it for 15 minutes. When it becomes light brown, we take it out and slice the log into small pieces. We bake these pieces a second time for another 15 minutes. And that's how the name 'biscotti' came. 'bi' means twice, and 'cotti' means cook. 'biscotti' means to cook twice. It reminds me the French name of cookie: biscuit as well, which has the same meaning. But I had never found any French cookie which need to bake twice till I made biscotti di Prato. This name suddenly makes sense.
They taste best dipped in a glass of Vin Santo (holy wine) or Elba's celebrated Morellino wine before eating according to my book. Maybe when I try this way one day I will understand why the author said so.
Cookies including biscotti, sablé chocolate, sablé vanilla for junior high school 20 years reunion.
Get ready to mail to Chongqing.