For the version of this recipe that worked, click here.

I will begin by saying that this post was doomed from the start. It was plagued by senior moments, camera issues, and kitchen disorganization. And even with all that, these coffee biscotti bars, as I have decided to call them, still came out pretty darn good – although one might beg the question, if you are combining espresso, dark chocolate, and roasted almonds, how can you really go wrong? Good point.

The main issue with this post is that what came out was a completely different beast than what I had set out to make, which was a recipe for coffee crunch bars that appeared in the column When Coffee Goes Crunch by Molly Wizenberg from the February 2009 issue of Bon Appétit. I have no doubt that those would have been great (and I plan to try again soon), except I did something very silly. After years of successful baking endeavors that took for granted that I had committed to memory that 1 stick of butter = 1/2 cup, I somehow managed to forget in this recipe. Even more dumb – the recipe specifically instructs you to use 2 sticks. What a mess.

This is a pretty fatal flaw, especially for a recipe that depends on butter as its only source of moisture. (Note that this was also the recipe that killed the four pound bag of Jacques Torres 60% chocolate that fueled my holiday baking and then some – RIP giant bag of chocolate).

I only discovered the problem when the mixture was not turning into a dough the way it was supposed to in the mixer. I panicked. It looked like sand! And I still didn’t figure out what I had done wrong, because well – duh. So, with the oven preheat alarm beeping and the mixer running, I made the snap decision to beat 2 eggs and throw them in. It was the culinary equivalent of a “hail Mary”.

The eggs achieved the desired effect by providing the moisture that was so desperately needed, (keep in mind that I still had not discovered the error of my ways) but I knew that I had veered dangerously off course.

I searched my kitchen up and down but could not find my small, walled baking sheet, the one that the recipe demanded. Argh. I used a large one instead, pressing the dough into one end of the sheet, and stopping in the middle, where I tried to carefully build a wall of cookie dough that hopefully would hold up during baking.

It was at this point that my camera became unresponsive and refused to save pictures to its memory card. While the bars baked, I messed with the camera, downloading the contents of the memory card before reformatting it, but all to no avail. The final shots for this recipe, and all of my next post, were lost and I finished the job with a simple point and shoot camera, which is great for vacation shots but just doesn’t get down to the level of detail that this blog usually provides. These last two shots were taken with the second camera.

It was while the bars were in the oven and I was moving on to the next item on the baking agenda (an extension of my feed the computer programmers campaign, by the way) that I solved the mystery of the missing butter by way of taking inventory of my remaining butter supply. What came out was still very delicious, but it was very different than what the author had intended. The bars, especially after cooling, had the texture of biscotti, and were born to be dunked into a steaming cappuccino. If I could have predicted this, I would have shaped them into a flat loaf and cut them into slices and nobody would have been the wiser. Next time I am making biscotti, I will keep this new recipe in mind. 

Coffee Crunch Biscotti
Adapted from Molly Wizenberg’s recipe, from Bon Appètit, February 2009

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

2 large eggs

1 1/4 cups (firmly packed) dark brown sugar

2 tablespoons instant espresso powder

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup sliced almonds

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 325°F. Whisk first 3 ingredients in medium bowl to blend.Using electric mixer, beat butter, sugar, and eggs in another medium bowl until blended, about 2 minutes. Add espresso powder and almond extract; beat 1 minute. Stir in flour mixture in 3 additions, mixing until just absorbed after each addition. Stir in chocolate chips and almonds (dough will be thick).

Turn dough out onto a large ungreased, rimmed baking sheet. Using hands, press dough into (and here is what I would recommend, not what I did when I thought I was making the original recipe) a flat loaf, no higher than an inch tall at the center, with edges that taper down to no smaller than 1/4 inch thick, ensuring that the loaf does not touch the edges of the pan. Pierce all over with fork at 1-inch intervals.

Bake until edges are lightly browned and beginning to crisp, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool on sheet 1 minute. Cut into 48 bars. Immediately transfer to rack; cool (bars will crisp as they cool). DO AHEAD Can be made 5 days ahead. Store in airtight container at room temperature.