Savoury Biscotti

Let’s start off with a minuscule warning – these are not for dunking in your coffee. Or tea. Or hot chocolate. Or any other hot beverage for that matter. Unless said hot beverage is soup, in a mug. But not cup-a-soup. Please not that. Not unless it is the only thing left in the cupboard and you will waste away from starvation before you get to the supermarket. Which, let’s face it, for most of us, is pretty unlikely. So no cup-a-soup. Okay?

I have digressed. And this post has barely begun. Which bodes well for the rest of it.

The idea of savoury biscotti has been languishing in my notebook of ideas ever since I made the almond, orange and chocolate ones last year.

Sometimes, as a person who has to avoid gluten at all costs, I miss things that are crunchy. But crunchy with bite. Not crisp-crunchy, shatter into a bazillion pieces when you bite into it so that most of it goes down your top and into your bra crunchy. Do you have any idea what I am trying to say? Crunchy with substance, that’s it! Something you can really get your teeth into. That also isn’t sweet. Savoury cravings can sometimes be the most difficult to satisfy.

The idea behind these was to provide something I could dip into soup at lunch time, without fear of bitty bra syndrome (I really need to stop talking about bras).

The soup acts in much the same way as coffee / tea / hot chocolate does in a sweet, more traditional, biscotti combination. It softens the biscuit, making it easier to bite.

I wanted to use Mediterranean / Italian flavours in them, because of what I hope is obvious reasons, however because of the olives, they take a little longer to dry out than their sweet counterparts, and also have a little tendency to go soft quicker. But a quick revival in the oven will bring them back to their crunchy glory.

Also – and here is where things can get really wild – they can be bashed up a bit and scattered onto salads like cretins croutons. In my gluten eating days I could never ever get behind cretins croutons. I never really got them. But these, I get . . . these would make a delicious salad adornment.