Dennys Double Chocolate Biscotti

If you have never made your own biscotti then you are in for an easy to do mouth-watering treat! These cookies/biscotti bake twice. After baking the first time, make sure not too many people are around as my husband and I found ourselves gobbling them up for they tasted like hot brownies! Especially good with melting chocolate chips in them.

You could just stop here in the recipe and have lots of great cookies to serve!

The second baking dries them out more so they can be stored for a longer period in a tin. Maybe you would like to send to friends or troops overseas as a dry cookie like this will survive the journey well packed. We found you can still gently heat them in the microwave to melt those chocolate chips to get that just baked sensation all over again!

Yield: about 30 cookies/biscotti

Notes: The above yield is a real joke. My yield was more like 15 - 18 biscotti. Cutting these cookies as only a 3/4-inch thickness really requires incredible patience bordering on the divine or a laser - neither are in my cooking apron.

Realistically, I cut these biscotti at about 1 1/2-inch intervals and on the diagonal as is traditionally done by the Italians. To get the above yield you could probably do it by cutting only horizontally.

It reminded me of a brownie equivalent of a thick steak! (OK, these days I'm a virtual vegetarian but the visual was such a grin reminding me of when I used to dine as a carnivore a couple times a year.)

Be aware that a wonderful crust develops on top that cracks even with the first baking which makes it difficult to get anything better than a ragged cut - even using a serrated edged knife which is definitely a great idea. So, don't despair if they don't look perfect. Trust me; those ragged crumbs and chocolate chips that fall off are delicious too!

This recipe is too much fun to worry about perfection; enjoy!

Also, if you use Nestle's chocolate chips you might want to reduce the sugar to 3/4 cup as they are really sweet.

You may notice that I like to bold the verbs in a recipe. It makes it easier to scan the recipe and catch up to where you left off, knowing what to do next. At least it works for me. Let me know how this works for you.

Dennys Double Chocolate Biscotti

Ingredients:

1 ¾ cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup unsweetened Hershey’s cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup light brown sugar

6 Tablespoons canola oil (neutrally flavored oil promotes the chocolate taste)

3 large AA eggs

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

8 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (double chocolate Ghiradhelli)

Directions: Line large baking sheet with double thickness of aluminum foil.

Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat sugar and canola oil in large bowl to blend.

Beat in eggs 1 at a time, then vanilla. Beat in flour mixture. Stir in semisweet chips.

Drop dough by heaping tablespoonfuls onto prepared sheet in two 10- to 11-inch-long strips, spacing 3 inches apart. Using metal spatula or wet fingertips, shape strips into 11- by 2 ½-inch logs. Refrigerate 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350° F. Bake logs until tops are cracked and dry and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 25 minutes; cool 10 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 300° F. Using foil as aid, lift logs onto work surface. Line baking sheets with clean foil. Using serrated knife, gently cut warm logs crosswise into 3/4-inch to 1 1/2 –inch-thick slices, your choice on the frustration meter. Arrange half of slices, cut side down, on each prepared baking sheet.

Bake biscotti until just dry to touch, about 8 minutes. Turn biscotti over. Bake until top is dry to touch, about 8 minutes. Cool on sheets.

Note: These are not as dried out as traditional biscotti and should be eaten inside a week.

For more easy chocolate recipes:  Romancing The Chocolate blog.  My goal this year is to put up chocolate recipes on Tuesdays and Fridays on that blog.  If you have some recipes you would like to contribute make sure you contact me!  Lots of hungry people in the world and we can only feed them one person at at time!  (Group hug.)

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