These cookies taste like a mug of rich hot chocolate. The deep mocha-flavor is followed by a kick of cayenne pepper. Don't let the heat put you off; it only enhances the flavor.
When Tony Fortuna, the owner of Lenox, one of my favorite restaurants in New York City, gave me this recipe for his biscotti, I stopped making any other almond biscotti and started making these in double batches--twice a week. They are perfect--crunchy but not rock solid, dippable, dunkable and eminently munchable, as good with breakfast café au lait as with late-night herbal tea. They're great with ice cream, fruit salad, mousses and puddings too. Mille grazie, Tony.
Not a traditional Florentine, this lacelike biscuit is the kind you just can't leave alone. Although its crisp lightness is quite extraordinary, you could brush one side with melted dark chocolate if you like, to justify the name and give it a more substantial texture.
These are my rendition of my grandmother's sugar cookies, the ones she used to make for us every week, sprinkling the tops of the cookies earmarked for my brother and me with cinnamon sugar and the tops of those meant for our parents with poppy seeds. Actually this recipe is a composite of grandmother recipes, from mine and my husband's (with an Aunt Bertha recipe tossed in for good measure), all of which were written on small recipe cards and fingerprint-stained long before they came to me.
Ingredients
Good to Know: A mix of sugar and honey in these citrusy cookies satisfies a sweet tooth, yet each thin, delicate cookie has only forty-four calories. Go ahead, have two.
Although they're called "horns," these cookies are shaped more like a horseshoe. They can be piped into any shape, however, such as the familiar rosette with a little piece of maraschino cherry in the center. The almond paste and egg white combination gives them a wonderful chewy texture.
This is an amped up version of Mexican Wedding Cake Cookies by Sally’s mother, Ricki.
What This Recipe Shows: By rolling the dough balls in plain sugar first, the confectioners sugar does not soak in so much and stays on the surface better.