Christmas Biscotti

  • Prep Time: 25 mins
  • Total Time: 1 hrs 10 mins
  • Yield: 48cookies

    • About This Recipe

    “A colorful red and green dotted biscotti.. I love it and I don’t really like biscotti. My mother said to make her this if nothing else for Christmas!”

    Ingredients

  • 1/2 cupunsalted butter, room temperature
  • 3/4 cupsugar
  • 2eggs
  • 1teaspoonvanilla extract
  • 2teaspoonsorange zest
  • 2 1/4 cupsflour, all-purpose
  • 1 1/2 teaspoonsbaking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoonground cloves
  • 1/4 teaspoonsalt
  • 1cupdried cranberries
  • 2/3 cupraw pistachio nut

    • Directions

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  • Butter and flour a baking sheet.
  • In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
  • Beat in the eggs, vanilla, and orange zest until blended.
  • In another bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, cloves and salt.
  • Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat until blended.
  • Stir in cranberries and pistachios.
  • Divide the dough in half.
  • One at a time, place the 2 dough portions on the prepared baking sheet and form each into a log about 1/2 inch high, 1 1/2 inches wide and 14 inches long.
  • Space logs at least 2 inches apart.
  • Bake the logs for 25-30 minutes or until set and light brown.
  • Transfer to a cutting board and let cool 6-8 minutes.
  • Reduce the oven temperature to 300 degrees.
  • Using a very sharp knife, cut the logs in the diagonal into slices 3/8 inch thick.
  • Stand the slices upright on the baking sheet and return the sheet to the oven for 15 minutes to dry the cookies thoroughly.
  • Transfer to racks to cool.
  • Store the cookies in an airtight container for up to 4 weeks.

    • Reviews

  • “This is the first biscotti that I’ve ever made.It was excellent.I tried a serrated knive, andan electric knife, but what worked best was my Cutco butcher knife.I didn’t “saw” I just pushed straight down.It worked perfectly. And, they ARE beautiful.”

  • “Love them! Love them! Love them!I know they’re Christmas Biscotti, but I’m Jewish and it’s May and they’re still good.=:)Thanks for the recipe!”

  • “Wonderful biscotti! The texture of these is perfect and the recipe instructions and baking time are also perfect. I’m not a huge fan of cloves alone, but I can’t fault the recipe for that. I’d omit the cloves next time or substitute for something I like better. I used dried cherries, cut in half, for the cranberries. Lovely biscotti!”

  • “The flavor of this biscotti is wonderful!My only complaint was that they crumbled a bit on cutting, but then I used a serrated knife.I’ll use a butcher knife next time as suggested by another reviewer.I had to use roasted pistachios as raw ones were not available.I just rinsed and dried them to get rid of the salt.Yum!”

  • “I’ve been making these for Christmas for the last 3 years.Now my daughter is demanding them for Thanksgiving.The hardest part is getting the pistachio nuts out of their shellsThey are worth way more than 5 stars.Thank you for sharing this great recipe!”

  • “The recipe worked beautifully and came out very delicious. Will be adding this to my yearly cookie repertoire. I omitted the cloves because I like the clean flavors of just the fruit, nuts and vanilla.”

  • “I really like the flavour of these, but mine turned out crumbly. Additionally, even with a very good serrated knife, I found it difficult to cut through the cranberries, so they would pull out of the cookies, leaving empty indentations.Maybe an electric knife would be better.I drizzled with white chocolate.”

  • “Just made these biscotti and thought they turned out great.I drizzled melted chocolate over them and they taste wonderful.Thanks for the recipe Mary in NJ.”

  • “I agree with the other reviews…these are great!The recipe is easy to follow too.The only changes I made was to dip them in chocolate.Thanks Mary!”

  • “These biscotti were terrific!!!It was difficult to keep from eating all of the dough before they were baked.The flavor is just fabulous.I had to make just a couple of minor substitutions because my local stores did not have all that I needed.I ended up using cherry-flavored Craisins and salted dry-roasted pistachio kernels.(I just added less salt to the recipe.)Always use freshly-grated orange zest; the dried stuff just doesn’t compare.Thanks for this wonderful recipe.It’s a keeper!”

  • “This was my first attempt at biscotti and they turned out great.I couldn’t find raw pistachios or plain dried cranberries at my local store and didn’t want to make a special trip, so I bought a bag of roasted, salted pistachios and craisins.It was a little bit of work to remove all the pistachios from the shells, but it was well worth the effort.I also used Splenda sugar blend instead of regular sugar.I dipped each piece half way in white chocolate.Wow!I will be making these all year.The hint of clove and orange just really set off all the flavors.Thanks for the great treat Mary.”

  • “This was my first attempt at biscotti.It didn’t make quite as much as I wanted, so I made another batch the next day.While the first batch was near-perfect, the second didn’t cook up as nicely and crumbled when cut.Will certainly try again and again until perfected, as the flavor was excellent.Dipped one batch in chocolate, and will alternate with white chocolate in the future.Thanks for a great Christmas snack to pass out to friends and neighbors.”

  • “I’ve never made biscotti before, but I felt that it was something I needed to learn to do this Christmas.Instead of cranberries and nuts, I made them plain and then dipped them in chocolate and sprinkled them with red, green and white sprinkles.They were excellent!Everyone raved about them!”

  • “I can’t begin to tell you how thrilled I am with this biscotti!It’s perfect!Having never made biscotti of any kind before, I was a bit wary of the outcome, but it turned out to be easier to make than plain ol’ cookies and the taste is out of this world!I also can’t stand cloves, and I was extremely hesitant to add them.I thought about subbing with cinnamon, but decided at the last minute to just use a scant 1/2 tsp. cloves, and I’m really glad I did.The flavor is so subtle you can barely tell it’s there – my husband was surprised when I told him that was the only spice in them.It really just accents the orange and adds a depth of flavor.I did cut them closer to one inch per another reviewer’s suggestion, and the texture was perfect – crisp but not at all hard like biscotti can sometimes be.I dipped some of these in chocolate, and while I did enjoy the addition of chocolate and I think it makes them look very pretty, these really don’t need anything extra – and I’m a serious chocolate lover.Each year I make some cookies for my husband to take as a small gift to his co-workers; this year, this will be the only cookie I’ll make.They’re just that great!”

  • “This has become my favorite biscotti!!It’s easy to make and tastes awesome!! I’ve had many compliments and requests to make more. Thanks for a great recipe.”

  • “Very good biscotti. Next time I might dip them half way in chocolate.”

  • “Stunning! This was the first time I tried biscotti and I’m impressed! I may have turned the oven up too high so they were a little on the brown side but I cant wait to make some more and iron out my mistakes! Really tasty with the rind and gorgeous to look at, it may be a little hard packaging these up to give away, we’ve already starting scoffing them…”

  • “Excellent nice hard biscotti, exactly the way they should be wanted to make a bit sweter added cherry pieces 2nd time around EXCELLENT!”

  • “I should not have waited so long to review this recipe.These were great.I made them last Christmas and looked it up to make this Christmas.Slice them closer to 1 inch and they will be crisp not hard.”

  • “I followed the directions and found the dough to be extremely dry-so, I added another egg. The flavor was good but I kept them rather than using them as gifts as I planned.I may try again and would still either reduce the flour or add more liquid.”

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