Fruity Biscotti Biscuits

These are wonderful crispy, and lightly sweeten Biscotti Biscuits. They go so well with coffee and tea. Because I have a chocolate sweet tooth, as an added bonus, I dipped my biscuits into melted, semi- sweet chocolate. You can use any chocolate you have on hand: semi, dark, or white. And if you are not in the mood for chocolate, you can have plain biscuits.

There is a little work to making Biscotti Biscuits, but you will be rewarded with a slightly chewy and a cookie that looks as pretty as stained glass. Besides preparing the dough, the biscuits need to be baked twice. First bake, bake two loaves for 25-30 minutes. Cool completely, slice each loaf into 1/4″ thick, 12-15 pieces, then lay the slices in a single layer onto two cookie sheets and baked for another 20 minutes (flip half way through the baking process, 10 minutes each side.) If you like your biscuits to be very crispy, turn oven off, and leave cookies in the oven for another 10-15 minutes with oven door closed. Since I like my Biscotti on the soft side, I omitted the 10-15 minute sitting period.

All ingredients should be room temperature.

Prep time: 30 minutes
Bake time: 50 minutes
Stand time: 10-15 minutes
Serves: 25-32 (depending how thin you slice your loaves)

Ingredients
¾ C sugar
5 T melted butter (I used salted)
2 ½ t pure vanilla
1 t baking powder
1 t pure almond extract
½ t salt
2 large eggs plus 2 large egg whites (set aside yolks for another recipe.)
¾ C golden raisins
¾ C chopped, dried apricots
1 C lightly salted dry-roasted pistachio nuts
2 ½ C flour

Directions
Prepare two loaf pans with nonstick spray or butter
Preheat oven to 325 degrees
Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper

In a large bowl, mix together sugar, melted butter, vanilla, baking powder, almond extract and salt by mixer or by hand.

Add eggs and egg whites to the large bowl, beating vigorously until evenly incorporated. Then add raisins and nuts, mix until completely blended. Gradually add flour until mixed thoroughly. If dough appears too soft or sticky, let it stand for about 5 minutes to firm up before handling. If the dough is still too soft and sticky to handle, add 1 or 2 T of flour and mix.

With lightly floured hands, divide dough in two. Place each half in a loaf pan. Gently press dough to the edges of pan until dough is even. If you don’t have loaf pans, you may shape the dough into two logs (close to the same size and weight) and place on parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake for 25-30 minutes until lightly brown. Test for doneness by inserting toothpick in the center. You are looking for a clean toothpick. Remove from oven and cool completely.

Slicing – Once cooled, transfer loaf to a cutting board and with a serrated knife slice each loaf into ¼-inch thick slices. You will have anywhere from 25-32 slices from two loaves. In a single layer, transfer slices to two cookie sheets and bake again.

Second bake: At 325 degrees bake slices for 10 minutes, flip and bake for another 7 minutes until golden brown. Watch carefully, if your slices are very thin they can burn quickly.

Extra crispy: Turn off oven and leave the cookies in the oven for another 10 minutes.

Cool completely. In the meantime make chocolate gauche if you choose.

Chocolate Gauche
Ingredients
6 oz package chocolate chips, or 6 1-oz chocolate squares (dark, semi-sweet or white chocolate)
2 T butter or margarine
3 T milk
2 T white corn syrup
Directions
In a large saucepan, over very low heat, stirring constantly, heat the chocolate chips or squares and the butter or margarine until the chocolate is almost melted. Remove the pan from the burner and continue to stir until the chocolate is completely melted. Beat in the milk and white corn syrup. Stir until blended. If the chocolate is too thick add another teaspoon of milk.

Dip each cookie whichever way you like (I like to dip only half of my cookie.) Lay cookies in a single layer on a rack with wax paper underneath and let the chocolate set (takes about 10 minutes.)

Enjoy with tea or coffee. You may store any uneaten biscuits in an air-tight container for two weeks.