Saturday, December 12, 2009

12 Days of Cookies - Day 9 - Holiday Biscotti




Yay!  It's nice to have a Saturday off after working the past couple.  Finally, I have a chance to get caught up on Christmas decorating and baking.  The girls and I put some more ornaments on the tree before breakfast this morning. =)  (Still more to do this evening.)  And I made my selection for Day 9 of the 12 Days of Cookies.  This Holiday Biscotti with Cranberries and Pistachios has been on my list from the beginning.  It wasn't even that hard to make--what slowed me down was the need to shell the pistachios.  I wish I'd thought to check at Central Market to see if they had any already shelled.  At least Brianna helped me with a few of them.  As picky as she is about a lot of things, she absolutely loves pistachios.  I'm sure she'll help me eat the leftovers.



I mostly followed the recipe as written.  I left out the aniseed because I really dislike all things licorice.  And a la Dorie, I rubbed the lemon zest into the sugar so it was evenly dispersed, then creamed the lemon sugar with the butter.  Then it was just a matter of mixing in the eggs (one at a time), then mixing in the dry ingredients.  I stirred the cranberries and pistachios in by hand.  I formed the dough into two long, thin logs on a parchment-lined baking sheet--the dough was surprisingly easy to work with.  I put the sheet in my oven (preheated to 325 degrees F) and baked the logs for about 25 minutes.  When I took the sheet out of the oven, I was surprised that the dough hadn't spread as much as I'm used to with biscotti.  That's when I realized that I'd added too much flour (2 1/2 cups rather than 2 1/4).

I decided that an extra ounce of flour wouldn't cause a complete disaster, and proceeded with cutting the logs into pieces.  I cut on the diagonal so I'd get longer pieces.  Rather than laying the biscotti pieces on their sides on two sheets, I left them standing up and was able to fit them on one sheet.  I had to bake them a bit longer (about 25 minutes) for them to start to brown, but it was worth it since I didn't have to mess with turning the pieces over.  Once the biscotti had cooled, I coated one end of each piece with dark chocolate.  (I took a poll, and Brianna and Gillian both voted for dark instead of white chocolate.)



The verdict?  Tasty!  I definitely like the dark chocolate much more than I would have liked white chocolate.  I think the dark goes nicely with both the cranberries and pistachios.  The plain biscotti also has a distinct but pleasant flavor of lemon that goes nicely with the other ingredients.  I'm going to take these to an potluck tomorrow (our Italian genealogy friends); I'll have to report back later on what they think.



If you'd like to give these a try, you can find the recipe here.  And be sure to check out the other bakers participating in the 12 Days of Cookies to see what they've baked up recently!  =)



Andrea of Andrea's Recipes
(honorary member and our founder but not participating this year)
Courtney of Coco Cooks
Kelly of Sass & Veracity
Michelle of Big Black Dog
Tiffany of The Nesting Project





10 comments:

  1. I loved this biscotti recipe - my favorite of the group! The dark chocolate is a good choice, although I think any chocolate would go with these. Can you see dipping them in hot cocoa? Mmmm.... :-)

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  2. This biscotti looks beautiful! Sounds delicious, too. I'm compiling my list of goodies and really enjoy making biscotti, so these are in the running!

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  3. Those look amazing Di! The colours and chocolatey dip, make them really appetizing! Mmmm...

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  4. I've seen so many delicious biscotti combinations using pistachios! I don't like pistachios so I've never baked with them but I think I'm going to make it my mission to find someone to give biscotti with pistachios to this year. Love your pictures - these look wonderful!

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  5. Those look so good! I love the tip about baking them standing up which would remove the flipping process!

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  6. I made a biscotti recipe that had cranberries and pistachios recently too and loved it. I really like how you dipped these in dark chocolate, I bet they tasted great.
    They look delicious.

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  7. These look so tasty. I really like the way the dark chocolate looks on the biscotti and with the pistachios and cranberries. So pretty.

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  8. These turned out so beautifully! I just told my husband I probably just made my last cookie (which would mean I'm calling Uncle on this) and then I saw these. Mmmm...

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  9. I have been wanting to make cranberry pistachio cookies or biscotti since last Christmas, but haven't done it yet! Your biscotti look quite tasty and I'd say you made a great call on the dark chocolate. Lucky Italian group - biscotti and focaccia.

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  10. These look so festive and just like a party all by themselves! I always find it interesting to hear about the adventures everyone else has in their kitchens each week with mis-read ingredients, etc. as it happens here all the time and I feel like I am not alone. I can just feel and smell that lemon being rubbed into the sugar, isn't that best idea ever from TWD??? Love love love that.

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