Green Penny Pincher

Once again, I found myself with too many frozen/overripe bananas.  Last time I attempted a new recipe, Toddler Muffins, with some success – they were good, but not so wonderful that I just HAD to make them again.  Even though in actuality it probably takes the same amount of time and effort, I just wasn’t “feeling” baking bread in this weather.  I came across this recipe for Banana Cookies and stumbled upon a suggestion of biscotti in the comments.

BISCOTTI.  Long adored, never made.   I am an expert at eating it; surely it couldn’t be that hard to make, right?

Chocolate Banana Coconut Almond Biscotti

I followed the posted recipe for the most part, but added in about 3/4 c. (too much) sweetened, flaked coconut, and sliced almonds for the nuts.  The additional of the coconut made the dough – already very stiff – too dry, so I tossed in a few ounces of apple juice, as that was the first thing I saw when I opened the fridge.

For those of you who are not familiar, baking biscotti is a 2-part process:  you bake the loaf, slice it, then re-bake the slices so they are hard and well-equipped to stand up to a dunking in coffee or tea or what-have-you.  Having completed the first step, I proceeded to “frost” the top of the loaf with melted semi-sweet chocolate chips (and a smidge of oil to make it spreadable.) and let it harden.

And then I looked at my beautifully frosted loaf and thought, “Boy, am I dumb.” HOW was I going to RE-BAKE the slices if they already were frosted?

The answer was: very carefully.  If I had used anything softer than the semi-sweets and that smidge of oil to frost them, this would NOT have worked, but as it was they held up fairly well to being re-baked, aside from landslides of almond slices which I shimmied back on while they were still warm.

Verdict?  Yummy, but kind of disappointing in that they were missing the moist delectability of fresh-baked banana bread.  I foresee another venture into biscotti-making in my future – maybe for the holidays – but I think next time I have to use up the bananas, I’m just going to bake some stinkin’ bread.