Nonna's Christmas Biscotti

In my family, these cookies are the biggest Christmas (and wedding!) hit. It’s not the holy days without them. My mama and my aunties always made by the MULTIPLE dozens (literally our basement freezer was always stuffed with them because, you know, there was no room in the OTHER two freezers they had).

My mother, who turns NINETY this year, is finally slowing down on the biscotti making this season, so I’m going to have to up my game! My mama usually flavors these with almond and anise — but wouldn’t you know that NOWHERE I looked in my area of Portland, OR had anise flavoring? WHAT? And I had no time to make my own. So instead of anise, I did an almond version, a rosewater pistachio version as well as orange, orange blossom, and orange zest version.

They’re easy to make and delicious. The trick is getting the baking time right. 8 minutes is always too little. 10 seems to be too much. But keep checking — when the bottom of your biscotti is light brown, it’s ready. The tops will stay light. These biscotti should be slightly soft, but not too soft. Solid and easy to bite into is my goal.

Another thing to note is the consistency of the dough. Sometimes it feels too sticky to roll — if this is the case add little bits of flour until it’s a perfect dough to roll into balls. It should not be TOO thick— but thick enough it doesn’t stick to your hands.

And as far as the icing goes, it’s trial and error as well. I like a thicker icing because I don’t like it to all drip off the cookie. I also just like a thicker layer of icing on top, so play around with the powder sugar and liquid to get it the way you like it.

This recipe makes about 4 dozen cookies! Which I oftentimes double because you can never have too many of these cookies. They are great to box and gift and also… eat non stop. Which seems to be what happens over here in this house.

Here is the recipe my family has been using for a long time. We have cycled in and out of different ones but as my sister noted on this recipe card: this one is best. I agree. It’s amazing.

Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups flour

2 sticks of butter

1 1/2 cups of sugar

6 eggs

6 tsp baking powder

1 tablespoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350.

Directions:

Cream together butter and sugar until blended. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each egg. Mix in vanilla. In a separate bowl combine flour and baking powder. Slowly add flour to creamed mixture and mix until blended. If the dough is too sticky, add more flour. Hand roll teaspoon size balls and place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake about 9 minutes.

Icing:

Mix enough powder sugar with water to make the consistency you want. Again, I like thicker. It’s always easier to go with a little and add more if you want it thinner. Then add whatever flavors you want. I usually have three bowls of icing going at once to separate my flavors:

almond extract

anise extract

a splash of rose water + vanilla

Juice of 1/2 orange, a splash of orange blossom water + orange zest.

After allowing your cookies to cool, dip the tops of each cookie inside the icing of choice. Top with rainbow sprinkles, sparkling sugar, crushed pistachios, zest of citrus… whatever you like!

*I used Color Garden natural food dye to color the icing. It’s without all the yucky stuff and allows for a light and lovely pastel color to emerge.

These cookies always make this season feel good to me. Traditions. Sometimes they mean everything.

May you enjoy all the biscotti and treats and family and friends in healing, whole, easeful ways this season.

Stay tuned for my utterly favorite Christmas cookie recipe tomorrow~ cucidati!