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Put the gourmet taste of biscotti in your pantry

Biscotti, the Italian cookies that used to be reserved for gourmet food stores or holiday baskets, are turning up everywhere. Today, they are on the checkout counters in nearly every coffee house in town. And they are on the shelves of local grocery stores.

By KATHY SAUNDERS
Published February 16, 2005

Our panelists enjoyed the low-fat treats and gave them high marks for dunkability. Biscotti cookies can be fine alone, but dipped in a hot drink, a glass of wine or a cup of milk, they reach a consistency that melts in your mouth.

Taster's Choice sampled four brands from local supermarkets. All four contained some amount of chocolate. Biscotti sounds exotic, but the cookies are really easy to make. The dough is baked like a loaf of bread and then sliced into strips that are baked again.

Panelists preferred the biscotti fresh from the Publix bakery during a recently sampling. The store version ($5.67 for a half-dozen) was vanilla with chocolate chips and garnered 50 out of 80 points.

The Publix biscotti were the best looking and were perfectly shaped into wedges, according to our panelists. "These are beautiful, and they have a great bakery look," said one judge.

Another liked their tenderness. "They have a soft crunch," he said.

The second and third choices, Nounis ($3.49) and Stella D'Oro ($2.79), both purchased at Publix, received 41 and 40 points respectively.

The Nounis biscotti were drizzled with white chocolate that didn't impress our panelists. They thought the chocolate hurt the performance of the cookie, which had fine flavor without the artificial-tasting chocolate.

"The icing looked great but failed in the taste test," said a judge.

"They have a nice bite," said another.

The Stella D'Oro biscotti had a slight almond flavor. The judges appreciated the extra flavor and thought these treats tasted especially good dunked in Starbuck's breakfast blend coffee.

In each case, at least three judges said they would buy any of the three top biscotti picks.

The final sample came from Ciocco Villa ($3.29). Three judges said they would not buy the brand. But one raved about this cocoa flavored and extra crunchy biscotti.

"This is like a shortbread cookie and looks very posh on the plate," he said. "It tastes like Fifth Avenue in front of the Plaza Hotel in early November." Talk about a rave!

Panelists were personal chef Marc Easterman; Nan Jensen, registered and licensed dietitian with Pinellas County Extension Service; Bob Devin Jones, actor, director and playwright; and Jim Yockey, aesthetician, Tierra Verde Salon and Day Spa. All products were tasted blind.

Send suggestions for product testing to Taste section, St. Petersburg Times, 490 First Ave. S, St. Petersburg, FL 33701 or e-mail them to krieta@sptimes.com Please put TEST SUGGESTION in the subject line.

No. 1: Publix.

No. 2: Nounis.

No. 3: Stella D'Oro.

[Last modified February 15, 2005, 16:08:59]