Almond Bread

The first recipe in The Best of Mrs Beeton's Afternoon Tea is Almond Bread.....or, as I discovered by the time I'd baked it, biscotti.

The ingredients are nothing unusual — flour, sugar, egg, almond (chopped & essence), oil.

Mixing the ingredients took no time at all, but I was confused by the instructions to roll and place on a baking sheet (as opposed to a tin.) This was where my idea for a blog came about - all searches for 'Almond Bread' came back with a tinned bake.

In the oven I was worried as it flattened out a lot, but did eventually rise a little bit too. (I also discovered our oven bakes unevenly now — fantastic)

After the first bake, it asks you to slice the loaf and sprinkle with sugar, then place back in the oven to bake and dry out.

At this point I realised that I was in fact baking biscotti. No clue why Mrs Beeton calls this ‘Almond Bread’ instead of Biscotti.

Unfortunately, our uneven oven ended up burning one corner of the biscotti.

Where it’s not burnt, it’s not quite as crispy (or tooth shattering) as a traditional biscotti, but the flavour is spot on! Perhaps it needed a little longer to dry out, but not bad for my first try.

Almond Bread

75g almonds

250g plain flour

4 tsp baking powder

a pinch of salt

2 eggs

100g granulated sugar

4 tbsp oil

a few drops almond essence

50g caster sugar

Grease and flour a baking sheet. Set the oven to 180C / gas 4

Blanch and skin the almonds, and chop them coarsely. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder together. Lightly beat the eggs and granulated sugar together in a large bowl. Add the oil, flavouring, flour and almonds, and mix to form a dough.

With floured hands, form the dough into a long roll about 7.5cm / 3in wide. Place on the prepared baking sheet, and bake for 30-40minutes or until lightly browned. Reduce the heat to 150C/Gas 2. Leave the bread on the baking sheet until nearly cold, then cut slantways into slices about 1cm thick. Sprinkle lightly with the caster sugar and return to the oven for about 50-60 minutes, until dry & lightly browned.