Gingerbread Biscotti

Tis the season for all of the Gingerbread things!  Look at this hottie Gingerbread Biscotti.

Confession time:  I checked out the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion Cookbook from the Wake County Public Library 6 weeks ago.  The book is sitting with my other cookbooks on my bookshelf.  It's pages have  post-it notes attached bookmarking the cookies I want to make next.  And notes. Lots of notes.  This is not my cookbook.

Anytime I think I might return it, I try something new and then extend my reservation for an additional two weeks.  I hope Santa Claus is paying attention, because clearly I need this baking book in my life.

While I drink coffee like it's going out of style, biscotti is never my first choice. Why would you want a cookie that's been baked within an inch of it's life? I like my teeth, where the are currently located, thank you very much.

So you may be asking yourself: why in the world did she make these?  Why, I never thought you'd ask.

I've never made biscotti before and I like a challenge.  But also because I am the office baking lady. Every office should have one.  My co-workers and I have  system.  I experiment at home on the weekends and then bring stuff into the office for them to try out. There is an unofficial ranking system which ranges from: leftovers (worst) to my department refusing to share with other departments (best).

Usually I bring in cookies or scones or mini muffins because hand-held is key.   Biscotti is coffee appropriate and breaks up the monotony of bringing in the ever popular Chocolate Chip Cookies. The gingerbread flavor gets me bonus points for seasonal appropriateness.

Alright let's talk about the baking.  I chose to follow King Arthur's Italian Biscotti recipe which does not have fat, which makes for a classic crunchy biscotti that can withstand being dunked in coffee or tea.  It was weird making a cookie without butter, but I survived.

The dough comes together pretty quickly. You will spend a few minutes trying to shape the dough into the perfect 14x2.5 inch rectangle.  I ended up with a 12x3.5 inch rectangle because I had a toddler underfoot. A dough scraper is critical for shaping the log and then smoothing it out.

"Biscotti" in english means twice baked.  But in order to bake them twice, you have to cut the dough right. This is the hardest part, but it's not really that hard once you get the hang of it.  Take care to cut evenly so that the tops and the bottoms of the cookies are equal-- meaning the cookies have  an even base to stand up on their own during the second bake.  I cut these at a diagonal and had a few that didn't make it to the second bake because the bottoms were too thin.

I hope you try these. They were fun to make and ranked highly on the office baking scale!