Dark Chocolate Orange Biscotti
I love these cookies for the winter time when oranges are in season. The best part is that it uses oil and you don’t have to wait for butter or any other ingredients to come to room temperature. And you can add your favorite chocolate. It doesn’t have to be dark chocolate. The recipe yields hard cookies that are great for dipping in your morning coffee.
Believe it or not, I took these biscotti on my trip to Europe, which included a visit to Italy. Yes, I took biscottis to Italy. But they traveled so well and they are good for weeks because the twice baking (that’s why they are called biscotti for twice baked) eliminates the moisture, which makes many of the other cookies go stale faster. I have team mates out of state and when I decided to send cookies to them for the holidays, these were on the top of the list.
Notes:
- Instead of putting the chocolate in the biscottis, you can leave it out and melt it, then dip the biscottis in the chocolate. I also find that dipping a rubber spatula in the melted chocolate and then smearing it on the flat side of the biscotti is easiest for this task.
- To help with the muddying of the chocolate on the biscottis if you decide to leave them in the biscottis, wipe your knife clean between each cut and that will reduce the smearing of melted chocolate.
- Many recipes that I’ve seen will direct you to allow the biscottis to cool after the first baking before cutting it up, but I found that you get nicer cuts if you cut into the rectangle when it is still hot. As it cools, it hardens and becomes crumbly. You’ll have to make sure to extra careful as the baking sheet is extremely hot. I usually lay my oven mitts over the edges of the baking sheet as I work.
Dark Chocolate Orange Biscotti
Cook Time: 42-45 minutes
Yields: 14-16 ¾ inch biscottis
1 ½ cup all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
¼ cup of almonds (roughly chopped)
3 oz. dark chocolate (roughly chopped)
1 teaspoon orange zest
2 tablespoons orange juice (freshly squeezed)
½ cup sugar
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 egg
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Mix flour, baking powder, salt and set aside.
- Zest the orange and squeeze about 2 tablespoons of juice. Also set aside almonds and dark chocolate. Both roughly chopped.
- Mix sugar, oil and egg. Then add orange zest, orange juice. Slowly add in dry ingredients. The batter will resemble cookie dough. Finally add in dark chocolate and chopped almonds. Spread dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet and shape into a rectangle. The rectangle should be about half inch in thickness and about a foot long and 5 inches wide.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven and use a knife or pizza cutter to cut into ½ to ¾ inch pieces. (Be careful as it is hot!) Turn the cut side up and bake for an additional 6-7 minutes and then bake for another 6-7 minutes on the other cut side.
- Allow cool completely on a cooling rack.
Enjoy!