Chocolate Almond Biscotti

These Chocolate Almond Biscotti are a little more tender than the typical biscotti. They are crunchy, but they are tasty on their own, without the required dunking in coffee or wine. Kids actually like these!

They contain butter, not usually found in Italian biscotti, along with Dutch process chocolate and bittersweet chocolate. These cookies are a bit more crumbly and lighter than traditional Italian biscotti. They're still good for dunking (including in milk), but it's not required.

This dough is pretty sticky, so be prepared to get your hands dirty when shaping the dough for the first bake. It's really helpful to have a flexible dough scraper too, although not necessary.

I coarsely chopped the almonds for this recipe, but next time I'll probably leave them whole because I love the look of the almonds after the cookies are sliced prior to the second bake.

These would make a wonderful addition to a holiday cookie platter or part of a gift basket with a cute coffee mug and some flavored coffees. Wouldn't that be nice?

After the recipe, check out all of the amazing biscotti from the talented members of the Creative Cookie Exchange.

Chocolate Almond Biscotti Recipe

Ingredients

1/2 cup (3 ounces) chopped bittersweet chocolate

1/4 cup (3/4 ounce) Dutch process cocoa powder

1 tsp instant espresso 

6 tablespoons (3 ounces) unsalted butter

2/3 cups (4 3/4 ounces) sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 large eggs

2 cups (8 1/2 ounces) unbleached all purpose flour

2/3 cup (3 1/4 ounces) natural almonds

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a half-sheet baking pan with parchment paper. 
2. In a small food processor, process the bittersweet chocolate, cocoa powder, and espresso powder. 
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer or a medium bowl with a hand mixer, mix the butter, sugar, salt, vanilla, and baking powder until fluffy. Beat in the eggs. Add the flour and chocolate mixture and mix on low until blended and all of the flour is incorporated. Mix in the almonds. 
4. Scrape the dough out onto the parchment lined baking sheet, and, with wet hands and a dough scraper, shape it into a 14 inch by 3 inch wide by 1 inch high log. 
5. Bake the log for 25 minutes. Remove it from the oven and let it sit for about 10 minutes. 
6. Spray the outside of the log with a light misting of water, and let it sit for about 5 more minutes (this is to help prevent the outside of the biscotti from falling apart when slicing). Reduce the oven to 325 degrees F.
7. Slice the log into 3/4 inch slices crossways and set them on the pan, standing up. Bake for another 25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. 
8. Store in an airtight contain for up to a week. 

Yield: about 22 to 24 cookies. Adapted from The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion (2004)

Biscotti (or mandelbrot or any other twice baked cookie by any other name) are one of the perfect Holiday tin cookies! They last forever, and there are so many ways to make them festive. So we’ve got you covered--sweet, savory, low fat, loaded with decadence, you name it, we’ve got it! Happy Holidays! 

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