Chocolate Macadamia Nut Biscotti
This recipe makes a deluxe biscotti with macadamia nuts, dried cherries and decadent chocolate, and it's easier to make biscotti than you may think.
Servings: 12
Note: If you are cooking for a particular style of eating, please check all of your ingredients carefully.
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups gluten-free flour (or all-purpose flour)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon xanthan gum (use xanthan gum if using gluten-free flour)
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter (or non-dairy alternative) (room temperature)
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 eggs (room temperature)
- 1/2 lemon
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped macadamia nuts (raw, unsalted)
- 1/3 cup dried cherries cut in half
- 6 ounces baking chocolate (your choice of milk, semi-sweet or bittersweet)
- 1/4 cup slivered almonds
Instructions
- Heat oven to 325 degrees.
Combine ingredients
- Stir together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and xanthan gum. Set aside.
- Mix butter and sugar.
- Whisk eggs into butter and sugar mixture.
- Zest the 1/2 lemon and squeeze juice from the 1/2 lemon. Stir lemon zest, lemon juice and vanilla into the bowl. Stir in dry ingredients.
- Thoroughly mix in macadamia nuts and dried cherries.
Form Loaves
- Drop spoonfuls of dough on a parchment paper lined baking sheet roughly in the shape of loaves.
- Use a rubber spatula to form the dough into rectangular, flat loaves.
First Baking
- Bake biscotti until lightly browned, approximately 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely.
Second Baking
- Heat oven to 250 degrees.
- Slice biscotti into slices one inch thick or a little less. Place cut side down on unlined, ungreased cookie sheet.
- Bake until no longer soft, approximately 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes. Flip them over part way through cooking. Remove from oven and cool completely.
Add toppings
- To melt the chocolate, use a dry bowl and dry spoon. Break the chocolate into pieces and microwave for 30 seconds on a medium setting. Remove from microwave and stir gently.
- Return to microwave for 30 seconds on a medium setting. Remove from microwave and stir gently. Continue until chocolate is mostly melted. You want to heat the chocolate slowly, so don't use a higher setting or longer cook time, even if at first there appears to be little progress. Heat for 30 seconds at time on a medium setting, and stir gently. When only small pieces remain, stir gently and allow the warm chocolate to melt the remaining pieces.
- Dip biscotti one piece at time in chocolate. Hold the biscotti by the bottom and dip the top in the chocolate. Place each piece right side up on a wire rack. Immediately sprinkle each piece with slivered almonds.
- Allow to cool. It's best to cool the chocolate slowly rather than cooling it in the refrigerator.
Notes
This recipe is perfect for entertaining. You can make the biscotti the day prior and serve it to guests at a breakfast or brunch.
I originally created this recipe as a gluten-free biscotti. If you are not cooking gluten-free and have regular all-purpose flour, you can use the regular all-purpose flour.
Baking chocolate works best for this recipe. If you can find the chocolate you want only as chocolate chips, or if you have chocolate chips you want to use up, you can use chocolate chips, and your biscotti will still taste great, but the texture of the chocolate on your biscotti will probably be better if you use baking chocolate.
You might end up with some white streaks in your chocolate, especially if you heat or cool the chocolate too much or too quickly or if the air is humid or condensation forms. This will affect the appearance, but the biscotti will still taste great.
If this recipe makes more than you need, you can make a smaller batch. I like to make the full batch and freeze one or more loaves after the first baking. When ready to finish the biscotti, remove from the freezer and allow to thaw. Then continue with the recipe: slice, put in the oven for the second baking, and add toppings.
To use up leftover melted chocolate, you can make nut clusters. Stir in unsalted unroasted nuts, such as macadamia nuts, almonds or cashews, and drop by spoonsful on parchment paper or waxed paper. Allow to cool.
Nut Clusters made with leftover chocolate and leftover macadamia nuts.
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