Twisted olive oil biscuits with orange juice – biscotti torcetti con arancia e olio d’oliva

These lovely biscuits have a crunchy exterior and a soft middle. They are softly flavoured throughout with orange, including the drizzled icing. The fine quality of the Tipo 00 flour gives the crust extra bite.

I am delighted that Filippo Berio has seen fit to include my recipe on their website.

Notes

• Makes 10 large or 20 small biscuits
• If you cannot get hold of Tipo 00 flour, the finest quality plain flour will be a good substitute. Do not use self raising flour

Equipment

• Large bowl and a small bowl
• Knife, orange juicer/reamer, teaspoon or honey drizzler
• Baking sheet
• Wire cooling rack
• Small measuring jug
• Rolling pin
• Baking parchment / greaseproof paper

Ingredients

• Tipo 00 flour – 250g (plus a little extra for dusting)
• Caster sugar – 70g
• Baking powder – 1 teaspoon
• Extra virgin olive oil – 50ml
• Fine salt – a pinch
• Orange juice – 90ml (from two oranges or carton orange juice)
• Zest of 1 orange

For the icing

• Icing sugar – 120g
• Orange juice – 27-28ml*

* you can substitute half of the orange juice for the icing with either Triple Sec or Grang Marnier liqueur

Method

1. Turn your oven on to 180°C / 200°C
2. Line your baking sheet and leave to one side
3. In your bowl, measure out the flour, baking powder, caster sugar, salt, zest and mix together
4. Squeeze out your orange juice and measure to the 90ml mark
5. Working quickly (as the orange juice will activate the baking powder), mix the orange juice and the olive oil into the flour mixture and turn out onto a lightly floured work surface
6. Roll out the dough to a rectangle that is about 6-7mm thick and around 15cm x 26cm in shape (about 3/8″ thick, by 6″ x 10″). The dough will be very maliable for a biscuit dough (it’s quite fun to use!)
7. Cut thin strips about 6-7mm across (so their cross section is square)
8. Take two strips and twist them around each other. The intertwined biscuit will be about 15cm (6″) long
9. If you want small biscuits you can cut the biscuit in half now
10. Place the biscuit on the prepared baking tray and repeat with the remaining strips to make more biscuits, adding them to the tray as well
11. These biscuits puff up slightly, so leave a 2 cm (1″)  gap between them
12. If you are left with a single strip of dough, then cut this in half and make one half-sized biscuit
13. Place the tray towards the bottom of the oven and bake for 12-14 minutes: the biscuits will be nicely browned
14. Bring out and cool in the baking tray for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack
15. When the biscuits are fully cooled, you can make the icing
16. Weigh out the icing sugar in the small bowl and add the orange juice (or orange juice and liqueur mix)
17. Mix together thoroughly, and check it is the right consistency: it should run off a spoon in a ribbon after about half a second. If it is too wet, add a little more icing sugar. If it feels too dry (it doesn’t drip) then add a very small amount of additional orange juice
18. Put the rack with the cooled biscuits back over the baking tray, so it catches any drips of icing
19. Using a teaspoon or a honey drizzler (I find this very good at this job!) drizzle the icing back and forth over the biscuits until they have roughly the same amount of icing
20. Leave to dry for an hour or two
21. These biscuits don’t last as long as butter biscuits, as they are quite soft, but will keep for 5-6 days in an airtight container

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