Makes about 26 biscotti. My great-grandmother Strahan was born in 1915, so she experienced the Great Depression. Comfort during these times was homemade. My twin great-aunts, Ilene and Alene, recall that when they were children, they loved sitting at a flour-covered table, indulging their creative minds by rolling sweet tea cake dough into long, thin shapes to form snakes and other animals. While they played, my great-grandmother simply rolled each ball of tea cake dough between her hands and flattened it into a round on the pan, leaving an imprint of her fingers on each cookie. She made huge batches, using a five-pound bag of flour at a time, and stored them in brown paper bags. She told me she liked dunking her cookies in coffee. This left an impression on me and inspired me to transform her cookies into biscotti. Hospitality was what my great-grandmother was known for, and tea cakes and coffee were a great introduction to it.
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup pure cane sugar
¾ cup cane syrup
2 large eggs, room temperature
½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 ½ cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
¾ cup chopped pecans
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, beat the butter and sugar with a whisk until blended. Add the cane syrup, eggs, lemon juice, and vanilla. Mix until blended.
In a bowl sift 2 ½ cups of the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture, whisking until incorporated. Stir in the pecans.
Scrape the dough onto a floured surface. Sift 1 ¾ cups of the flour over the dough. Knead the flour into the dough, scraping it up from the surface as needed with a bench scraper, until it holds together and is moist but not tacky. Add up to ¼ cup more flour if needed. Cut the dough into halves. Roll each half into an 11-inch log. Place each log on the prepared pan, at least 4 inches apart. Flatten the logs until they are about ½ inch thick.
Bake for 28 to 30 minutes, until the logs are firm to the touch, turning the baking sheet around halfway through the baking time. Remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes. Using a serrated knife, cut the logs diagonally into ½- to 1-inch-thick slices. For chewy biscotti, transfer to a wire baking rack to cool. For harder biscotti, return to a 300-degree F oven and bake for 8 to 10 minutes, turning the baking sheet around halfway through the baking time, until hard. Place the biscotti on a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
Makes about 26 biscotti.