Imagine biting into a biscotti made from almonds grown just a few yards away. That’s the reality of Enzo’s Table biscotti, which are hand-baked in Clovis, in central California farm country. Vincent Ricchiuti named the company after his great-grandfather Vincenzo, who emigrated to California from Italy. Ricchiuti and his family grow their own olives and almonds on their farm, and make everything from olive oil to pesto to almond butter, selling it at their farm store called Enzo’s Table, other California retailers, and online. “Our tagline is Italian heritage, California soil,” says Ricchiuti.
In the fall, he joined forces with his cousin, Matthew Rosetti, who owned the Biscotti House, a small bakery in a converted house, also in Clovis, that specialized in biscotti. The biscotti recipe comes from Rosetti and Ricchiuti’s great-grandmother, who always had biscotti in a red tin, Ricchiuti remembers. And now, Ricchiuti is packaging and selling the biscotti in eight flavors. But what makes a good biscotti? And what’s the best way to eat one? Here, we speak with Ricchiuti to find out.
What’s the difference between biscotti and cookies?
The main thing is that biscotti is twice-baked: bis means twice and cotto means cooked, so it’s cooked twice. When you get that twice-baked crunch of the biscotti, it’s special. So you bake the biscotti logs once in the oven and when they come out, you hand-slice them, and then put them back into the oven to finish them off. They should be beautifully baked all across. Also, nuts are definitely in traditional biscotti. An old-world-style biscotti has almonds and anise seeds, and those things coming together really is the true flavor of a traditional biscotti.
How do you avoid burnt or overly dry biscotti?
One of the most important things is that when you roll your log, you really want to make it as uniform of a shape as possible before it goes into the oven. That way, the biscotti bakes evenly throughout. If you have a narrow end of the log and then a thick middle and back to narrow, it’s not going to bake evenly. Then, after it comes out the first time, you want it to rest and get down to room temperature before you slice it. If you cut the biscotti when it's too warm, you’ll get more crumbs and it will break easier. Once it cools, slice away.
Enzo's Table Biscotti boxes. Credit: Erin Scott
What goes well with biscotti?
It’s great for dunking in coffee, that’s probably one of the most famous ways to eat it. A biscotti can be served with an espresso or a cappuccino in the morning. Or after dinner, to dip into a dessert wine, like a Vin Santo. It’s also great for breakfast and it’s a great snack when you’re on-the-go because they’re twice-baked and that makes them shelf-stable. They’re also great with ice cream or crumbled on top of yogurt.
What flavor biscotti work the best?
Well, almond is very traditional, but once you have your base biscotti recipe, you can start adding in different things like raisins, pistachios, chocolate. It’s a very diverse cookie, which makes it so special because you can riff on it in many different ways. We offer pistachio cranberry, lemon, triple almond, chocolate almond, and more.
Vincent Ricchiuti