Cranberry Orange Almond Biscotti

Tiffany and I (Jessi) had no idea what we were doing embarking on our first biscotti making adventure, but we knew we wanted to make something special for parent volunteers and our building staff to let them know how much we appreciate them without breaking the bank.  For our gifts, we decided to go with a coffee theme and went with a Starbucks VIA 3-pack along with some homemade biscotti.  Now to make the biscotti...

Cranberry Orange Almond Biscotti

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup light olive oil
• 1 1/2 cup white sugar
• 4 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 4 eggs
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup dried cranberries (if you can find the orange craisins, those would be even better!)
• 3 cups sliced almonds
• 2 heaping tablespoons orange zest
• Optional: white chocolate

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. 
   
2. In a large bowl, mix together oil and sugar until well blended. Mix in the vanilla and almond extracts, then beat in the eggs. Combine flour, salt, and baking powder; gradually stir into egg mixture. Mix in cranberries, nuts, and orange zest by hand.  
3. Divide dough in thirds. Form three logs on a cookie sheet that has been lined with parchment paper or greased with olive oil. Dough may be sticky; wet hands with cool water to handle dough more easily.  
4. Bake for 45 minutes in the preheated oven, or until logs are light brown. Remove from oven, and set aside to cool for 10 minutes. (Cover with towels to help keep from cracking).
5. Cut logs into 3/4 inch thick slices (we used a bread knife to gently saw slices). Lay on sides on parchment covered cookie sheet (or sprayed with olive oil). Bake approximately 10-15 minutes, or until dry; cool. Optional, dip ends in white chocolate and cool in refrigerator to harden. Makes about 30 large biscotti.  Freezes well!

 

 Have kids that like to help in the kitchen?  Zesting the oranges was a great job for miss Emma.

 

Here are our "logs" - we fit all three on one cookie sheet.

 Since we were mass producing, we needed to use some of these baking pans to cook the cut biscotti in.  We sprayed with olive oil as we didn't have any parchment paper and it worked great!

We tried dipping our first batch in white chocolate.  Loved it.  We had a hard time getting the chocolate to harden until we put it in the refrigerator.  Worked like a charm!

  

We found and adapted this recipe from allrecipes.com and were very happy with the taste as well as how easy it was to make.  We give it two thumbs up!