Preheat oven to 180°C or 350°F

140gr. or 2/3 cup

plain white sugar

2

whole large eggs

1 tsk. or 1 teas.

best almond or vanilla extract

1 tsk. or 1 teas.

baking powder

Large pinch of

salt

250gr. or 1 ¾ cups

all purpose flour sifted with the salt and baking powder.

110-120gr or ¾ cup

blanched toasted almonds lightly chopped

or

50/50

almonds and hazelnuts (which I prefer when I am giving these as a gift because it looks nicer.

semisweet, bittersweet or milk chocolate or chocolate chips.
If you are using bar chocolate cut it into small bits about the size of chocolate chips about 1cm or a little smaller than ½ inch pieces.

Assembling the recipe:

In a bowl large enough to take the eggs sugar and eventually the flour. With an electric hand held mixer beat the eggs and sugar until it becomes light, pale in color and forms a ribbon. This should take about 5 minutes.

When the eggs and sugar are beaten add the vanilla or almond extract.

Sieve in the flour containing the baking powder and the salt and fold it into the egg and sugar mix.

The batter will be pretty thick and sticky.

Add the chopped nuts and chocolate and fold them in.

Take a baking tray or cookie sheet with a sheet of parchment (baking paper) on it and with a rubber spatula scrape out the dough onto the baking sheet trying to form a log about 30 cm. or 1ft long.

If the dough is too sticky - wet your hands – shake off the excess water and try shaping it with your fingers. I find this always messy but easier using my hands.

Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and move to a cooling rack and let sit for only 10 minutes.

With a serrated knife cut the log into slices about 1½ cm. or ¾ of an inch thick. Place on the baking try lined with a clean piece of parchment (baking paper) and bake the slices for a further 5 minutes remove pan turn all the slices over and bake again for another 5 minutes.

The goal is to dry out the biscotti and lightly color them.  You should get about 16 slices from each log.

Notes:

You should keep in mind that the oven should be heated to 180°C or 350°F. I cooked these at 200°C or 400°F and burnt the bottom of the log and to add insult to injury the chocolate tasted scorched after I cut them and toasted the slices. So now I pay a little more attention and they come out just fine.

You bake these twice. The second time is to dry them out, it is this that gives them their long shelf life and a more appealing color. Be sure that on the second baking that they are dried and only lightly colored to avoid burning the chocolate.

Chocolate does have a very low burning (scorching) point so using an oven thermometer can be handy.

These taste great and because you can keep them stored in a plastic container for 3-4 weeks, so they will always be available to pull out to eat with a nice cup of hot tea on a cold Swedish night!

They are also dead easy to make. If you are making them as gifts, I suggest that you don’t make more than two recipes at a time because of the dough’s sticky nature but 2 recipes together should give you enough biscotti to make 4 gift packs.

If you would like to make these without the chocolate just click here for my Almond Biscotti recipe.