Orange-Cherry Almond Chirpy Biscotti

So, the fam has been inquiring a lot about my ento-concoctions and–since I’m leaving for Michigan tomorrow to visit them for the holidays–I figured I should probably deliver on what I’ve been promising them: insects are delicious! I decided to go with something in which the crickets I used would blend easily (thus, not frightening my family) and wouldn’t spoil quickly–something that could be packaged up and gifted as-is. I went with biscotti. Plus, it’ll pair well with the Baileys Irish Creme, coffee-themed goodie bags some of my siblings  will be receiving. I’m usually clueless about what to get them, but I feel like most of my siblings are little hedonists and enjoy imbibing as well as holiday food handouts.

I’m normally not a fan of biscotti. Every time I’ve tried it, it has always been too hard for my liking. However, in favor of a potentially softer biscotti, I opted for including some cream cheese. To my delight, it worked!

At any rate, the ingredients are as follows (it’s the holidays, so I went a little overboard on some stuff, but I assure you: this tastes insanely good!):

  • 1/2 c. Crickets
  • 1/2 c. Butter
  • 1 c. Sugar
  • 4 Eggs
  • 1 tbsp. Sweet Almond Oil
  • 3 c. Flour
  • 1 tbsp. Baking Powder
  • 2 oz. Cream Cheese
  • 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
  • 1/2 tsp. Orange Extract
  • 1/2 c. Dried (& Diced) Cherries
  • 1/4 c. Slivered Almonds

This is probably one of the easiest things to make–it took me less than 20 minutes! Preheat the oven to 350 °F, then start tossing all of the ingredients–minus the dried cherries and slivered almonds–into a blender. Blend until it kind of balls together (doesn’t take long). Super easy. Done. Boom!

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Afterwards, take the dough out and put it into a mixing bowl. Add the dried cherries and almonds. Mix the contents with a spoon, or your hands, until everything looks fairly evenly dispersed. If you don’t care about getting your hands sticky, take the mixture out,  put it onto a smooth surface, and then fold the cherries and almonds into the dough–it’s definitely much easier doing it that way.

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Once the almonds and cherries are adequately mixed throughout the dough, get out a pan (doesn’t really matter what size), and make two, somewhat flattened, biscotti “loaves”. They don’t need to look amazing. Mine were lumpy.

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Now, put them in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes (depending on your preference for hard or soft biscotti) and enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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