Easy Dessert Recipe: Cranberry Hazelnut Biscotti

Directions:

Start by toasting the hazelnuts.  They need to be cool when you mix them into the dough, so you can toast them a day before.  While they are toasting, mix the vodka into the dried cranberries to soak.

To make the biscotti dough, cream butter and sugar together until the mixture is light and fluffy. Once the butter sugar combination is very fluffy, beat in the eggs. Then once the eggs are mixed well into the batter, add the Frangelico and vanilla extract. Mix all of the ingredients thoroughly.

Vanilla Extract:  I always use real vanilla extract, the best that I can find, because it makes a huge difference in the flavor of the biscotti.  Avoid imitation vanilla extract.

Next add the dry ingredients--flour, baking powder and salt. These can be added at the same time. Mix them in until well blended. At this point, your dough will be difficult to mix and somewhat stiff unless you have used a lot of liquid. If you have, your dough will be sticky.

Once your dough is completely mixed, you can fold in the hazelnuts and cranberries (just pour in whatever vodka has not been soaked up by the cranberries.

At this point, your dough will be hard to mix, but that is okay because the biscotti will still come out great.

You can bake right on your cookie tray, but I like to line the baking pan with parchment paper. Parchment paper eliminates the need to butter the pan, and reduces the fat in the cookies. The biscotti will not stick to the parchment paper. You can reuse the parchment paper a couple of times until it becomes brown or brittle.

Make one or two loaves (in a baguette or hot dog shape) on the parchment paper. You can alter the size of the biscotti by the width of the loaves.

Biscotti are twice baked cookies. The first baking is in the loaf shape. Bake the loaves in a preheated 325 degree oven between 25 and 40 minutes. This will depend on your oven so watch the first couple of batches very carefully after 25 minutes.

Each loaf should be lightly browned when you take it out. Let the loaves cool for a minimum of 10 minutes. If the center is too hot when you slice the loaves, they will fall apart.

Once cool enough, slice the loaves crossways with a very sharp knife to create individual biscotti. I use a Santoku knife for this. If you slice on a diagonal the biscotti will be longer. Slicing straight across will make them shorter. You can determine the width as you slice also.

For the second baking, stand the biscotti up on their bottom edge (as if they were still in the loaf) with about a 1/8 inch between them. Bake them this second time at 325 degrees for 10 minutes. The longer you bake them the drier they will be. If 10 minutes isn't enough, bake them longer.

Let the biscotti cool on a rack before you serve them.