Even if you’ve never tried biscotti, you’ve at least seen these twice-baked biscuits in your local Starbucks. Great for dunking in coffee or tea. And, they are even tastier when you make them yourself.

Here, tart cranberries play off of semi-sweet chocolate for a devilish biscotti. Dunk them or eat them “as is”.

 

Ingredients (2 loaves – 22-25 pieces)

3 cups flour

½ cup sugar

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

4 oz (110g) dried cranberries, coarsely chopped

4 oz (110g) semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

3 eggs, beaten

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp vanilla essence

½ tsp almond essence

 

1. Preheat oven to 350F (180c).

2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cranberries, and chocolate.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, vanilla, and almond essence.

4. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. This will be a very dry mixture.

5. With wooden spoon, cut the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until you have a stiff dough.

6. On a floured counter, knead the dough – folding over and kneading 8-10 times.

7. Divide the dough and form into two 7-8” (18-20cm) loaves.

8. With the palm of your hand, flatten the loaves to 1-1 ½” (2.5-4cm). Place them on a lightly greased and floured baking tray.

9. Bake for 35 minutes. Remove to cooling racks for 10 minutes.

10 Reduce oven heat to 325F (160c).

11. Slice the loaves diagonally into ½” (12mm) slices. BTW, when slicing the loaves, those end pieces are great to eat right then and there (cook’s reward).

12. Arrange on baking tray and return to the oven for 10 minutes.

13. Turn over and bake 10 more minutes.

14. Cool on wire rack.

Right after baking, your biscotti will still be a little soft in the center, but they soon harden as they cool.