Matcha, pistachio and goji berry biscotti

In the second week of this year's Great British Bake Off the signature challenge was biscotti. An Italian tea time treat that is twice baked and super crunchy and delicious. As for many of my bakes however I opted for a bit of experimentation rather than just sticking to a recipe. 

The original recipe that I based my biscotti on is as follows and can be found on A Pocket Full Of Rye

50g whole almonds
50g pistachio nuts
200g Plain Flour (ideally organic)
150g caster sugar
2 tsp Baking Powder
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 grated lemon rind

Whilst I used this blog post as a guide my recipe was somewhat different:

25g Matcha green tea
25g Goji berries 
100g Pistachio nuts (shelled)
200g Ground almonds 
1 Lemon rind
150g Honey 

It can therefore be seen that my biscotti are gluten free - no flour and contain no refined sugar. 

The first step to biscotti heaven is to roast the pistachio nuts in a preheated oven for 4-5 minutes. Whilst these are becoming lovely and crisp in the hot furnace I like to find a super smashing great playlist on Spotify and dance around. 

Anyway onto phase two: whilst you leave your nuts to cool - the pistachio nut guys, spot snickering- place all the rest of the dry ingredients in a bowl. 

You may have noticed that with the matcha and almonds combined I seem to have a lot more dry ingredients than the original recipe calls for. This is because my version contains no gluten and is therefore makes a fairly wet dough. Therefore I have added a little bit more almond to compensate.

Stir in the pistachios, goji berries, honey and eggs until you have a violently green dough.

Transfer the dough to a greased baking tray using a spatula to work it into a rectangular shape so that it will bake evenly.

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Place your baking tray in the centre of the oven preheated at 200 degrees C / 180 fan for approximately half an hour. I had a slight mishap at this stage as I realised bit too late that my oven was actually at 200 rather than 180 because it is indeed a fan oven - idiot. 

Its fine though, just a little brown.

It doesn't look very appetising at this stage (maybe its the green) but you need to wait until the dough is completely cool before cutting the biscuits otherwise they will crumble. Again I took to dancing madly around the room whilst my 'not quite biscotti yet' cooled.

Using a sharp knife  cut the biscuits to roughly 10mm  in thickness, if you want to be super precise use a ruler for this stage or if like me you aren't that bothered - don't. The biscuits should however be roughly the same thickness so that they cook evenly.

Put your biscotti back in the oven for 5-10 minutes for a second bake, this seals the extra crunchy yumminess. 

Leave to cool if you can wait that long and enjoy with a cup of tea. 

They still look a bit weird though.