Easy Chocolate Chip Almond Biscotti
First biscotti recipe on the blog. WOOHOO. I feel like we should celebrate. We should throw a party. Can I bring biscotti instead of cake though? I have a lot of extras lying around...
I just realized something horrifying. That chocolate chip in the bottom biscotti in the photo above looks suspiciously like a raisin. But I promise it's not. It's not a raisin. It's just a melted and slightly smushed chocolate chip. I swear.
While we're at it, I want to point out something else. I'm aware that biscotti is the plural form of this twice-baked cookie and that biscotto is the singular. I don't care though. I'm using biscotti interchangeably for both here. Biscotto sounds too pretentious. And it's just too annoying to use both forms. So I'm sticking with the better-known plural phraseology. Grammar snobs (trust me, I empathize), please, bear with me.
So, confession: I'd take a cookie over a biscotti any day. Because I like soft and chewy over crispy and crunchy.
Which is why there are dozens of cookie recipes on this blog but only one biscotti recipe - this one.
But here's another confession: I LOVE these chocolate chip almond biscotti. So much. Even though they're not cookies.
Because these easy biscotti are not of your typical crispy, break-your-teeth-on-them biscotti variety. These biscotti are so soft. And tender. And as soon as you bite into one it'll practically melt in your mouth.
I just realized something else. These biscotti are so similar to the tender chocolate chip scones I posted last week. Not in flavor, but in texture.
Biscotti and scones are generally both crispy and crunchy. But those chocolate chip scones I posted last week are very tender and light. And these chocolate chip almond biscotti are tender and light too.
I didn't do this on purpose or anything. But I could have titled this recipe "tender chocolate chip almond biscotti" like the scones instead of "easy chocolate chip almond biscotti" and it would have been equally accurate.
But these biscotti are tender and easy.
All you gotta do is whisk together the wet ingredients, stir in the dry ingredients, and then shape the dough into two logs. Then, bake the logs for about twenty minutes, remove the tray from the oven, slice the logs into sticks, and return the tray to the oven.
And six minutes later, your biscotti are ready to eat.
These biscotti have a crispy exterior that's beautifully golden brown.
But the best part is the inside. Ah yes, the inside. So delicate and airy and soft and packed with chocolate chips and slivered almonds.
And the shape is perfect for dumping. Since they're long and narrow, biscotti are the perfect size to plonk into a mug of coffee or glass of milk. You don't have to worry about getting your fingers burned from you steaming cup of joe like you would when dunking a short and fat cookie into your mug.
And you don't have to worry about your precious biscotti slipping out of your fingers and dropping inside the cup to be lost forever, leaving you wondering why bad things happen to good people.
Ooh, actually, you do. You do have to worry about a piece of your biscotti breaking off and falling into your tall glass of milk to be lost forever. Because these biscotti are so delicate and tender. So a piece will break off a lot faster than it would from a typical hard, crunchy biscotti that's more resilient to the eroding elements of heat and liquid.
The recipe for these biscotti comes from my mother, who got it from my cousin, who got it from a friend, who got it from her grandmother. And that was an 100% true story. No embellishments.
You know these chocolate chip almond biscotti are gonna be good when they have a history like that. So just in case you didn't want to take my word for it, you can use the recipe origination story as proof.
Easy chocolate chip almond biscotti
Yield: 25-35 biscotti
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 1/4 cups packed flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup slivered almonds
Preheat oven to 375 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, oil, and vanilla extract.
Add in the flour and salt and mix with the wet ingredients until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips and almonds last. Dough will be loose and slightly wet, not dry like a normal cookie dough.
Dump dough into 2 even portions spaced out on prepared baking sheet. Wet your hands and then shape the dough into 2 logs that are each about 12 inches long and 6 inches wide. Alternatively, divide dough into 3 smaller logs.
Bake logs for 20 minutes and then remove sheet from oven. Slice logs into 25-35 biscotti total of even width, and then place the biscotti cut side up onto the sheet. Return sheet to oven and bake biscotti for another 6-8 minutes, or until the tops and bottoms are golden brown.
