Technically, these are cantucci, but I love alliteration too much. You’ll forgive me, because of how good these are. I got *very* obsessed with making these shortly after my father died, having been struck with a sudden and inexplicable craving for cantucci and being unable to find any in the local shops. I figured “they can’t be THAT hard to make” and spent an afternoon experimenting with different recipes I found on the internet.

I then spent several days transmuting my grief into biscuits. Partway through I got *really* into experimentation and thought I’d mix it up in terms of filling – I found the crunch of the almond and double-bake technique works really well with a little extra chew from the cherries.

This technique is my preferred one, cobbled together from all the bits I like best. Enjoy!

 Assuming you are a person with a kitchen and the necessary implements, I am taking your possession of the following for granted.

• An Oven
• A Baking Tray
• Greaseproof Paper
• A serrated knife (breadknives are good)
• Mixing bowl
• Chopping Board

Now, on to the important bit. The ingredients.

YOU NEED :

• 2 eggs
• 165g granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking power
• 250g plain flour, sieved
• Orange zest, at least 1 teaspoon. Lemon also works, Lime is unacceptable
• Almond essence (1/2 teaspoon) or amaretto (1 teaspoon)
• 70g raw unpeeled almonds
• 70g glacé cherries, cut in half
• 1 ½ tablespoons of honey

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C (remember to knock about 20 off if you have a fan oven, and to learn a proper temperature measurement system if you’re using Fahrenheit)

First, combine the sugar, flour and baking power in a mixing bowl. Give it a bit of a stir. You don’t need to, per se, but I like to.

Next you add the “wet” ingredients. I recommend starting with the zest, then the eggs, then the essence, then the honey, but you can pick whatever order you want.

Get to mixin’! Once the mixture is respectably crumbly, sort-of-sticking together, you add the cherries and almonds. Lovely. Continue mixing till it’s all sticking together in a big sphere studded with almonds and cherries

Now it’s time to roll it out with your hands. Dust your chopping board with flour and roll the ball into a sausage shape. Get your knife and cut it in half – you want two sausages, about three fingers or so thick, roughly 30cm in length. So…roll and nudge a bit till you’ve got that.

Put them on your baking-paper’d tray, and put them in the oven for half an hour.

Take them out of the oven. Don’t they smell great? Yeah they do. Put them to one side, use a cooling rack or something if you’ve got one. Keep the baking tray and paper, you’ll need them again. I generally leave them 15/20 minutes to cool.

Once they’ve cooled, it’s cutting time. Go along the biscuit loaves in a uniform diagonal line, you want individual cuts of biscuit that are about 1cm or so thick.

Add back to the oven for 7-10 minutes – I advise checking on them at 7 minutes, and if they’re not starting to visibly burn leaving them for another two minutes, but every oven is different. Use your own judgement.

Pop them back on the cooling rack, but make sure you sample at least one (after blowing on it a couple of times) fresh out of the oven.

And there you have it!

NOTE : be sure to sweep the floor afterwards!