Cocoa Biscotti with Cranberries

I didn’t wake up this morning thinking, “hey I think I’ll make some biscotti today!” – in fact, the thought of baking biscotti has never crossed my mind even once in my life.  It was by sheer chance that I was using up the last stick of my butter, and decided to see what random recipe would be in the inside back of the box.  It was for a biscotti recipe… and then I realized, I had all the ingredients on hand.  The process looked easy enough, so I set out to make my very first batch of biscotti’s.  You can slice these as thin or thick as you want – I chose to go for thinner ones because I wanted them to have a delicate crunch.

Yield: 30 biscottis

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) of softened butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 TB molasses (I didn’t have this on hand so I left it out and replaced it with vanilla extract)

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 TB water
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy (I used my KitchenAid Mixer, but you can use a hand-mixer or even your bare hands).  Beat in eggs and molasses (or vanilla).  Combine flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl.  Blend into butter mixture along with the water.  Stir in walnuts and cranberries.

Divide dough in half.  On a lightly floured surface, shape each portion into two 2 x 10-inch long logs.  Place logs on a lightly buttered or parchment lined cookie sheet.  Bake 25-30 minutes or until firm.  Place logs on a cooling rack and let cool for 10-20 minutes (this is to ensure that you can cut into it easily later on).  After its cooled, cut diagonally into 3/8-inch slices using a serrated knife.

Place slices on a cookie sheet and bake at 250 degrees F for about 20 minutes, turning after 10 minutes, until dry.  Remove to a rack and cool.

Adapted from: Cocoa Biscotti with Cranberries from the Challenge Butter box.

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