Holiday Spice Biscotti

There is nothing quite like homemade edible holiday gifts, especially in this day and age when it can be so difficult to find a block of time between lessons, appointments, and work to prepare yummy delicacies from days gone by.  Each year, starting the weekend after Thanksgiving, we begin holiday baking in our house. Now, as a kid, my Mom did this because we would have so many family and guests visit over the holidays it truly took weeks to prepare the food to feed everyone for the weeks of visiting that took place between traditional Christmas and Orthodox Christmas (i.e., January 7th). Tables would be set up in the extra area of the garage to help store all the food (you can do that in Pennsylvania where it is in the 30’s at this time of year).

We don’t get nearly as many visitors over the holidays as I remember as a kid as all of our family live far away, but I still bake like a mad woman over the holidays; partly for my children to have a similar holiday memory as my own; partly to let the guests we DO receive experience this holiday memory; and partly for my own desire to relive this part of my childhood each year.

This specific recipe is not one that my Mom made, but my own crafted recipe that has become a requested favorite. I started experimenting with different biscotti recipes (because Mackdaddy Mike is Italian and I didn’t have any Italian cookies in my repertoire) about 10 years ago. I found that due to the sheer volume and ease of the recipes, as well as portability (they don’y crumble easily), they make great teacher and coworker holiday gifts. Slowly over the years, I morphed this recipe out of my favorite characteristics of several recipes.  Gary A. — here you go!

FYI – I tried a different format this week on this recipe. Rather than pulling the directions and inserting a picture before the printed recipe, I embedded the photos in the print recipe (don’t worry – the photos won’t actually print). For those of you that have been following my recipes, let me know which set up you prefer – old or new.

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Holiday Spice Biscotti

A holiday gift-giving tradition!

Servings 12 servings

Ingredients

• 3 cups krispy rice cereal
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 1 ½ cups flour
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• ¼ cup amaretto
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 bag white chocolate melts optional

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 295 degrees.
2. Use a food processor to pulverize the rice cereal.
3. Add butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Blend until well mixed and resembles corn meal. Place mixture in a large bowl.
4. Add eggs, amaretto, and vanilla. Mix until forms a dough
5. Break ball of dough in half. Roll into a log about 8 inches long and two inches in diameter.
6. Transfer log to a greased cookie sheet. Slightly flatten logs.
   
7. Place in preheated oven for 30 minutes.
8. Remove from oven and allow to cool for about 7 minutes. Slice about ½ inch thick and place back on cookie sheet. Allow some space between each cookie.
   
9. Place back in oven for another 30-35 minutes.
   

10. Allow to cool.

11. (OPTIONAL) Melt the white chocolate in microwave (follow instructions for melting on the back of the package).

    

12. Drizzle white chocolate on cooled cookies. Allow the chocolate to harden before storing.