Chocolate Almond Biscotti

I really like the classic Italian biscotti cookie, but I don't make them very often. Why, you ask? Essentially, I'm just too lazy. It's not that they're difficult to make, it's more so because they're time consuming what with the whole twice baking thing and my attention span (when it comes to baking) usually doesn't allow for something that takes longer than, say, 20 minutes. So saying, I found this recipe on one of my favorite food blogs (Closet Cooking) and really liked the fact that it's sort of a scaled down version; it only makes one log which translates into about 12 cookies. Yes, you still need to bake them twice- otherwise, they wouldn't be called biscotti- but hey, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make every once in awhile. And of course, I had to tweak them ever so slightly... I swapped out the pistachios for almonds, and used plain ol' vegetable oil instead of olive oil. Now, if only I'd had some dried cherries on hand... oh, well. Next time, eh?  ;)

Chocolate Almond Biscotti

Ingredients:
1 cup AP flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
6 Tbs. sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
splash of vanilla extract
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients. (In this case, the sugar counts as a "dry" ingredient.) Stir in the remaining ingredients until just combined. Pour the dough onto a baking sheet and, using slightly damp hands (it helps to combat the stickiness of the dough, trust me), form it into a log about 8 inches long and about 2 inches wide. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes then allow the log to cool on a wire rack for 35-40 minutes.

Drop the oven temperature to 325 degrees.

Once fully cooled, use a serrated knife to slice the log into 1/2 inch cookies. Place the cookies cut-side down on the baking sheet and bake at 325 degrees for 10 minutes, flip them over, and bake on the other side for another 10 minutes. Allow the biscotti (twice-baked cookies) to cool on a wire rack then pour yourself a strong cup of coffee and dig in.

Enjoy!

*Cook's note: These aren't overly sweet cookies so you may want to use milk chocolate or even semi-sweet chocolate instead of the dark that I used. *I* happen to like the fact that these turned out deeply chocolatey without being terribly sweet, but I can see where the addition of dried fruit (like cherries, prunes, or even apricots) would make for an interesting contrast in flavor.

(Addendum: So it's now been several days since I made these cookies, and I have to say that I'm not as impressed with them as I was when they were just an hour out of the oven. The texture is just not quite right; they're not nearly as crisp as they should be even though I've stored them in the same air-tight container I've put previous batches. So, while I do like the flavor, I don't think I'll be using this particular recipe again... instead, I'll probably just use this flavor profile and apply it to one of the other biscotti recipes I've used in the past that I know hold up well.)