Chocolate Almond Biscotti

This year – for the first time – we’ve joined bloggers from around the world for the 2013 Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap!  Our contribution was this delicious recipe for Chocolate Almond Biscotti!

It’s a lot of fun (not to mention a great way to sample some delicious cookies) – but even more importantly, this program supports a great cause!  Each participating blogger makes a contribution to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer, a national non-profit organization committed to funding new therapies used in the fight against pediatric cancer, which claims the lives of more children in the US than any other disease.

Hosted by Lyndsay from Love & Olive Oil, and Julie from The Little Kitchen, the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap goes like this: Each blogger who signs up for the Cookie Swap is matched with three other bloggers.  We send each of those three bloggers a dozen cookies, and then we receive three different boxes of cookies from other bloggers who were matched with us!

Jack and I had the huge pleasure of receiving cookies from Amber from Loves Food Loves to Eat, Pudgie from Pudgie Pies, and Struesel (aka ‘Tiffany’) from Strudel and Streusel!

We were matched with Kim from Design + Life + Kids, Beth from It’s Good To Be The Cook, and Pam from The Patriotic Pam – who each received a dozen of these Chocolate Almond Biscotti.

Our Chocolate Almond Biscotti uses the same ‘base’ as our cranberry pistachio biscotti and I chose this recipe, in part because it’s yummy, but even more important – I wanted to select a cookie that could withstand being shipped around the country and still arrive in great, edible condition for my cookie swap recipients!  I hope they enjoyed the biscotti as much as we do at our house!

Last but not least,  the 2013 Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap was also joined by four generous brand partners, OXO, Gold Medal Flour, Dixie Crystals and Grandma’s Molasses who will EACH be matching the food blogger donation to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer (up to $3,000).

If you are a food blogger and would like to participate next year, sign up here for notifications about the 2014 Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap.

Chocolate Almond Biscotti {#fbcookieswap}

• Prep Time: 20 mins
• Cook Time: 50 mins
• Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
• Yield: 2-3 dozen depending on preparation

Ingredients

• ¼ cup light olive oil
• ¾ cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon almond extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• ¾ cup blanched almonds

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix together the oil and sugar until blended. Add in the vanilla and almond extracts and eggs. Mix well.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking powder, mixing well. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet mixture – mixing until fully blended. Add chocolate chips and almonds and mix until just blended.
4. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Divide dough in half and form into two logs (approximately 12×2 inches for small biscotti or 9×3 inches for longer biscotti) on the parchment paper. Note: dough is sticky so wet your hands with cool water to more easily handle the dough.
5. Bake the logs for 30-35 minutes in the 300 degree oven until logs are a very light brown. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 275 degrees.
6. After 10 minutes, using a serrated knife, cut the logs on a diagonal into ¾ inch thick slices. Lay the cookies on their sides on the parchment covered cookie sheets and bake for 8 to 10 minutes more. Let cool.

You may also enjoy:

Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti

Orange Almond Biscotti