Homemade Biscotti to Thank some Special People

When my van broke down the other day, my dh's friend V. drove down and helped tow old bessie back home for us. He also has picked up my dh before by the side of the road when he was broke down just 2 months ago, when the trans in the car went....not to mention his wife is always giving used clothes to my girls...so I wanted to do something special for them. I also wanted to bless the folks who have helped my dh trouble shoot the furnace (Which is not working again). And of course, do some baking because that will warm up the house nicely and work well with the space heaters :-))

What shall we make? The kids and I discussed our options....considering the fact that we were missing some ingredients and had no vehicle....

Gingerbread? Na, no icing.

Chocolate Chip? Na, no chips.

Drop cookies? too boring.

Sugar cookies? hmmmmmm. As I was looking for my sugar cookie recipe, I found my biscotti recipe and decided that this is something they would probably like instead.


Biscotti are simple enough and can be made with different flavorings. This one is a modified recipe made with those things which I found in my pantry. You can pretty much use any cookie recipe, form the cookies into an oblong mound on a baking sheet, and bake it, then cut into slices, and toast the slices in the oven again...this is how I made mine:

I started off by creaming together 4 sticks of butter (about 2 cups), and then adding 2 cups of sugar to the butter, and further creaming it. I also added about a 1/2t of vanilla, and 1/2t. of almond extract (at this point, you could add whatever flavorings you have and would like to add--I've even added mint before). Cream in 4 eggs. Next, stir in 6 cups of all purpose flour (or about 5 to 5.5 cups of soft wheat flour, which is what I used--you need less when you use fresh wheat), as well as 3t of baking powder, and a pinch of salt. I also stirred in about 1/2 c. of chopped pecans, which I had in my cupboard.

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Divide your dough into 4 parts, and form 4 oblong shaped loaves on baking stones or greased cookie sheets (this works best with some parchment paper, if you have it. Parchment is the key to nearly perfect cookies of all sorts! :-)). This is sticky "cookie dough", not smooth bread dough. Bake for around 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean from the middle.

Let them cool for about 20 minutes on the cookie sheet before using a serated edge knife to cut them into 1/2 inch slices. Lay the slices, cut side down, on the cookie sheets or baking stones, and toast for an additional 10 minutes, flip the cookies, and bake for 10 more. Cool them.



Now, at this point, I think it looks really cool to have them halfway dipped in chocolate. The problem was, I had no baking chocolate in the house. So, as i rummaged through the pantry, I realized I did have some baking cocoa from the bulk food store.

Thankfully, I worked in a bakery before and seem to remember the recipe for dipping chocolate is cocoa, butter, vanilla, water, and powdered sugar, heated in a double boiler. I played with it til I got it right, so I am not really sure what the exact amounts are (sorry).


After Heating it well, I tested it out to make sure that the proportions were correct, and the chocolate hardened on the outside of the cookies...well, close enough ;). They tasted awesome!