Greek Biscotti (Paximadia)
I have always had a weak spot for biscotti, the delightfully crunchy twice-baked Italian cookies. Whether it’s almond biscotti, chocolate biscotti, or my beloved anise biscotti, there’s nothing better to dunk in a hot cup of coffee for an Italian breakfast or afternoon treat.
While we Italians seem to have the market cornered on biscotti, there are several Greek versions of biscotti including one called paximadia that are quite comparable to anise biscotti. Before I retired, I used to buy a dozen or so of them whenever the Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Church which was near my workplace used to hold their twice-a-year food expo. One year as I was buying the paximadia, I commented to the woman who was behind the table selling them on how much I liked them and how I always looked for them during the food expo. She told me her name was Karen and that she was the baker who always made them. Of course, you know where I’m going with this. Karen graciously gave me her phone number and said to call her for the recipe. Score! I only wish I could have found the cook who made the moussaka which was the best I’ve ever tasted. It’s the rare recipe I can’t manage to cajole someone into giving to me, but I wasn’t successful this time around with the moussaka.
The recipe makes a lot of paximadia—approximately six dozen. If you juggled with the recipe, you could make half, I suppose, but I wouldn’t! I know most of us are doing social distancing during these trying times, so you might not have enough people around to consume them as you normally would. Since they freeze quite well, I’d plan on doing that and you’ll be very happy to have them stashed away.
If you’ve made biscotti before, you’ll find the directions are quite similar. After mixing up the cookie dough, you form logs which you brush with an egg wash. You’ll bake them the first time and then let cool for about 5 minutes before slicing them on a diagonal and baking them a second time to crisp them up to your liking. Then, all you need is a cup of coffee for dunking them. 🙂
Greek Biscotti (Paximadia)
Makes approximately 6 dozen
Ingredients for Biscotti
- 8 1/2 to 9 cups flour
- 7 tsp. baking powder
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 cups vegetable oil
- 7 eggs
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 oz. (whole bottle) of anise extract—if you want a stronger anise flavor, add 1 to 2 tsp. additional anise extract
Ingredients for Egg Wash
- 1 egg yolk plus 1 tsp. water
- Dash of sugar
- 1/8 tsp. vanilla
- Sesame seeds for sprinkling on top of cookies, optional
Directions
Whisk flour and baking powder together in large bowl and set aside. Using a stand mixer, combine sugar and oil in mixing bowl. Add eggs, one at a time, beating to combine. Add salt and anise extract and beat mixture until incorporated and creamy. Slowly add flour. If mixture is too sticky to handle, you may need to add a little more flour. Chill cookie dough for at least one hour or overnight for ease in handling.
Form 2 logs per cookie sheet. Size of logs depends on the size of your cookie sheets. I made six logs that were approximately 9” to 10” long and 2 1/2″ wide. I used my kitchen scale to weigh out the dough so that the logs would be reasonably uniform which helps them bake evenly. Each log weighed approximately 14 oz. Don’t worry about the weight of the last log. As long as you keep the width the same at 2 1/2″ wide, it doesn’t matter how long it is. It will bake uniformly with the other logs.
Beat egg yolk with water, sugar, and vanilla. Brush over tops of logs. Sprinkle with sesame seeds if using.
Bake at 350o F for 22 to 25 minutes. (Note: The second baking will be at the lower temperature of 300o F.)
Do not overbake, or the cookies will be harder to cut. Cool for 5 minutes before cutting cookie logs diagonally approximately 3/4″ wide. Not counting the end pieces which I deliberately cut small, I got approximately 12 biscotti from each log. Stand the cookies upright on their bottoms on cookie sheets and leave a little space between each cookie. You want the sides exposed to crisp up a bit.
Lower oven to 300o F and bake cut cookies an additional 10 to 15 minutes. The longer you bake them, the firmer they’ll get. It’s up to you to decide how firm you want them to be. You might want to experiment with the first batch and try them before you bake the remaining batches.
Fran’s Notes
Just as an FYI, if you’ve made the anise biscotti here on the blog, you know that they have a very strong anise flavor. These Greek paximadia have a milder, more subtle anise flavor.
Source: Recipe from Karen, a very nice Greek lady who baked these cookies for the Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Church’s Food Expo and was kind enough to share the recipe with me.