The Only Biscotti Recipe You Need!

Hi and welcome back to Plating It With Wendy where I share with you recipes which impress with ease. Today we're going to be making a Christmas cookie and there's nothing better than a festive Italian biscotti. So let's get started. To a large bowl we're going to add one cup of white granulated sugar. To that we're going to add quarter cup which is four tablespoons of very soft unsalted butter. You can see how soft that is. It's just smashing down. Now we're going to add that in and now with the spatula we're just going to work the butter into the sugar till it gets well blended. Now you could use a hand mixer or a stand mixer to do this but I find that doing it by hand is equally easy. Okay Santa seems to have done quite a good job here. Now this is looking good so we're going to keep it aside and beat up some eggs. In another bowl we're going to crack two large eggs and these should be at room temperature and now we're just going to beat up the eggs to break them up. To that we're going to add the zest of two oranges and this is going to give a lovely fruity flavor to the biscotti. If you wanted you could also substitute with lemon and we want to get just the top of the skin avoiding the bottom layer because we don't want that bittery flavor in the biscotti. And now we're going to add that in and now let's zest the second one. After zesting the oranges if you're not going to eat them immediately you could wrap them up in a plastic wrap and refrigerate them to eat them later. And now let's add the remaining zesting and for that authentic flavoring we're going to go in with one teaspoon of almond extract. This is not so traditional but I like to add one teaspoon of a pure vanilla extract as well. Now let's whisk this all together till it gets well combined. I can get that aroma of the orange and the almond and it's amazing. Now let's add this to the butter and the sugar. I'm just going to make a little well in the center. Pour in the egg mixture. Now once again with our spatula we're just going to combine it all together. See it's important to have the butter really soft because then it becomes easy to mix it up by hand and then you can get a smooth batter. Now let's keep this aside and mix up our dry ingredients. Now to another bowl we're going to add two cups of all-purpose flour and I've already measured it out over here. Half a teaspoon of salt and one teaspoon of baking powder. Let's whisk that together just to mix them all up. You want the salt and the baking powder to get evenly distributed. Okay now we're going to keep this aside and chop up our mix-ins. For this recipe our mix-ins are going to be one-third cup of pistachios, one-third cup of dried apricots, one-third cup of toasted almonds and one-third cup of dried cranberries. Now we're going to coarsely chop this up so that it becomes easier to cut the biscotti. At the same time you get a little goodness in every bite. Just going to put it back into the bowl while we chop up the others. And now let's coarsely chop up the cranberries. This is going to give so much of flavor and color. It's going to look so Christmassy. Now you can always change up the mix-ins depending upon what you prefer. You could add in chocolate chips, that makes a lovely addition. Okay that's looking good. So we're just going to put it into the bowl and keep it aside. The pistachios and the almonds, I'm going to put them in full because when you cut the biscotti they look beautiful. So to the flour now we're going to add in the almonds, the chopped dried apricots, the pistachios and the chopped dried cranberries. And now let's give this a mix and let it get well coated with the flour. Now by doing this when you add the mix-ins into the batter they're going to get well distributed and easy to blend in because they're along with the flour. So I always prefer mixing them with the flour first. All we have to do is to mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients. So now we're just going to add in half of it first and once again we're going to just fold it in using our spatula. And now that the flour is just about incorporated we're going to add in the rest. And once again we're just going to fold it in to the batter. And now it's going to become a nice cookie dough. At some point if you find that it's too tough to go on mixing it with the spatula you can just go in with your clean fingers and bring it together. The dough is going to be a little bit sticky but that's what we want. Now we're going to dust our work surface with some all-purpose flour and you can be a little bit generous here because the dough is a little bit sticky. And now we're going to put our dough onto the well-dusted work surface. So we're just going to put it together before we cut it up to make two logs. Now we're going to eyeball it and cut it up into half. Now you want to really get even halves because then the baking time would be the same. I think we've done quite a good job here. Now we're going to keep half aside while we shape one log. Now we're going to dust on a little bit more of the all-purpose flour. A good idea would be to dust your hands too. And now let's roll away. So now we're going to roll it till it's about eight to nine inches long and about two and a half inches wide and one inch in height. And now we're going to lift up the biscotti and place it in the lined baking sheet. And I've lined it with some parchment paper. And once again we're going to dust our work surface with some all-purpose flour and dust our hands too with some. And we're going to roll away till we get the desired size of log. And I'm going to place it on the other side of the tray. And you've got to leave a lot of space between the two because they're going to spread and expand. I've got my oven preheated at 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 180 degrees Celsius. And we're going to put our biscotti in to bake for the first time. Biscotti means twice bake. So the first bake we're going to bake it for 30 minutes. Then we're going to take it out, let it cool, slice it up and then bake it again. Our biscotti has baked and it's got a lovely color on the top. And now we're going to allow it to cool without touching it for about 10 to 15 minutes. Now the biscotti has cooled and we are able to touch them. So now it's time to slice them. And I'm using a serrated knife and we're going to saw cut it. Now you could either cut the biscotti straight or you can go on the diagonal. I'm going to go straight. Now you can cut them as thick or as thin as you want. I'm going for slices which are approximately about half an inch. Now sometimes if you find it's difficult to saw cut it, that's because the cranberries and the apricots are there, then you can just use a little pressure and cut it down. You want a clean cut to the biscotti. Now let's slice up the second one. When I make biscotti, these end slices are always a treat for the one who makes it. So we're going to take the slices and lay them down on the baking tray, which I've lined once again with parchment paper. And see all those beautiful colors? It looks very festive. They're a little bit delicate right now, but once we put them back for the second bake, they're going to firm up. These are such a perfect Christmas treat. And if you're visiting your family or friends, you can make these, put them in a little jar and gift them. I'm sure they're going to be well received because they're absolutely delicious. While we were slicing the biscotti, I lowered the temperature of the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit or 150 degrees Celsius. And now we're going to place the sliced biscotti back into the oven for the second bake and we're going to bake them till they get a little golden. That should take approximately about 20 minutes. The biscotti is all ready and I ended up baking it for 25 minutes till it got this lovely golden color. Now we're going to allow it to cool before we enjoy it. Oh my goodness, look at that! And now it's time to give the biscotti a taste and I'm really excited. But before we do that, if you're new to my channel or haven't subscribed already and like to try out recipes that turn out right every time, go ahead, press that subscribe button. And while you're at it, if you hit the bell icon, you'll be the first to get notified every time I upload a new video. Okay, now let's give the biscotti a taste. I'm going to take one of them and there's no better way to enjoy biscotti than dunking it into a freshly brewed cup of coffee. Wow! Wow, this biscotti is absolutely amazing. With every bite, you get the burst of all those flavors that we've added in. The almond, the orange, the pistachios and the cranberries. You've got to give this recipe a try. So hop onto my website platingitwithwendy.com or you can hit on the link in the description box below for the full written recipe. Thanks for watching. See you soon.