sugar in the morning

I don't remember a lot about junior high. Snapshots, for the most part. When I try to drudge up memories from that time period, I get an image of orange and black poms.  The sound of a bunch of 13-year-olds shouting, "Llama, llama, llama! We stand out!"  The feeling of absolute terror that accompanies forgetting the words to the national anthem at a basketball game. Counting the number of times my history teacher ended his sentences with the word, "Right?"  Watching The Matrix too many times to count while eating cheese-filled hot dogs and cosmic brownies washed down with an alarming amount of Mountain Dew.

Maybe I remember some things about junior high.

Junior high was also the time that I was in show choir.  Like Glee. Except without being absolutely ridiculous.

As I was making this week's biscotti, I kept thinking about this song that was part of our show when I was in seventh grade. 

Wouldn't you like to see the cast of Glee perform that one?

I actually...really like the song now. Plus I still remember a significant chunk of the choreography.  Flashback video blog?

Yeah, maybe not. 

Cinnamon-Sugar Biscotti
(modified from allrecipes.com)
2 cups flour
1 1/2 t cinnamon
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
2/3 cup sugar
6 T butter
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
Cinnamon chips (Hershey's makes them. They are fantastic. Do not buy unless you have a use for them, or else you will eat them all plain.)

1 t cinnamon
3 T sugar

Preheat oven to 325.

1.  Mix the flour, cinnamon, and salt.
2. Cream the sugar and butter together, then beat in the eggs and vanilla
3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and stir in the cinnamon chips.

So you know how I said biscotti doesn't usually have fat (oil, butter, etc.)?  Well. This one does.  And because of the butter,  when I mixed up the ingredients, it came out a lot more like cookie dough than biscotti dough, which tends to be drier and crumblier.

I think the next time I make this recipe (or stumble across another type of biscotti that uses butter), I will add an extra egg and use less butter.  The end result tastes great, but it has a strange biscookie texture.

Yay portmanteaus.

4. Shape the dough into two logs and bake at 325 for 25-30 minutes (I've found it's best to err on the higher side with biscotti).

6. Let the logs cool, and cut diagonally into strips about 1/2 inch thick.  See my first biweekly biscotti post for a visual example.

7. Mix together the 3 T sugar and 1 t cinnamon, then sprinkle it on one of the cut sides of the biscotti slices.

8. Bake at 325 for at least 20 minutes.

9. Cool and dip in coffee! (Or hot chocolate)

There you have it. Now you, too, can have sugar in the morning, sugar in the evening, AND sugar at suppertime.

Though I'm not sure I would suggest it.