Pumpkin Pie Biscotti

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 Our weather has been perfection this week. Crisp cold nights followed by clear cerulean blue sky days with hardly a cloud to be seen. The perfect weather to pick back up my afternoon hot tea ritual. What goes better with a mug of hot tea than a crunchy, not too sweet piece of biscotti. My love for all things pumpkin has been well documented on this blog. I'm pretty sure that I have posted more recipes with pumpkin as the star than any other ingredient. My love for that orange squash runs very deep ! I've been craving pumpkin pie for a couple of weeks now. So of course when I came across a recipe for pumpkin pie biscotti, I HAD to make it immediately. The biscotti contains all the spices found in pumpkin pie as well as pumpkin puree. The pumpkin puree gives the biscotti a beautiful orange color and really ups the pumpkin flavor. It's perfect if you are needing an afternoon pumpkin pie fix to go with you cup of tea!

Pumpkin Pie Biscotti
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
2/3 cup mashed canned pumpkin
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons butter
1cup pecans , coarsely chopped


Method:
Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, and pumpkin pie spice in a large bowl; stir well. In another bowl, combine pumpkin, eggs, and vanilla, stirring well with a wire whisk. Slowly add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture, stirring until dry ingredients are moistened. (Mixture will be very crumbly; it will gradually become moist after stirring.) Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat; add pecans. Cook, stirring constantly, until nuts are slighty browned. Remove from heat and cool completely. 

Knead or gently stir cooled nuts into dough. Place dough on a lightly floured surface and divide into 2 portions. Lightly flour hands and shape each portion into approximately 2 x 12" long log. Place logs  lightly greased cookie sheets. Bake for 25-28 minutes; cool logs 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 300. Cut each log diagonally into 1/2" slices using a serrated knife. Place slices on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 15 minutes or until they reach the desired crunchiness. The biscotti will get a bit crisper as it cools. Cool completely on wire racks.

source: Southern Living 1996 (adapted)

All that's missing is a piping hot cup of Chai tea!

Scrumpdillyicious Chocolate Chip Biscotti...

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...or the continued effort to have our dessert and eat it too!

I have to confess that with most baked goodies I can maintain a certain amount of restraint. I bake lots of cupcakes and can take them or leave them.  This however is not the case with cookies. Fresh homemade cookies are like a siren's call to me, especially during the winter. The cold weather makes me want a piping hot cup of coffee and there's really nothing better with coffee than a cookie. This is really true if you're a dunker, like me. Chocolate chip cookies are my favorite coffee dunking cookie. I really have no will power when it come to freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. I'll polish off three or four with a cup of coffee with no problem.
Anyway this winter has been the coldest one we've had since the ice age or something, and I been drinking potfuls of coffee. All this coffee drinking has had me craving chocolate chip cookies but haven't made any because I know I have zero cookie willpower. So I opted to make biscotti instead. This biscotti is lower in fat and calories than my chocolate chip cookie recipe. Not only does it taste great but the crunchiness biscotti makes it better than cookies for dunking into coffee.

As I was making these I realized that although I've eating lots of biscotti, I'd never actually made biscotti before. Well, I foresee lots of biscotti baking in my future!


Chocolate Chip Biscotti  (printable recipe)

Makes about 5 doz biscotti
2 cups all-purpose flour 
1 cup sugar 
1 tsp baking powder 
1/4 tsp. salt
Pinch ground cinnamon 
4 Tbls. cold  butter 
3 large eggs, lightly beaten 
1 cup semisweet-chocolate mini chips, or regular 
1 cup walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped 
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In large bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. With pastry blender, 2 knives used scissor-fashion, or quickly with your hands, cut in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs. 
Spoon 1 tablespoon beaten eggs into cup; reserve. Add chocolate chips, walnuts, vanilla, and remaining beaten eggs to flour mixture; stir until evenly moistened. With hand, knead mixture a few times in bowl until dough forms. 
On floured surface, with floured hands, divide dough into quarters. Shape each quarter into a 9" by 2" log. Place logs crosswise, 4 inches apart, on 2 large cookie sheets. With pastry brush, brush tops and sides of logs with reserved egg. Bake logs 25 minutes. Cool logs on cookie sheet on wire rack 10 minutes. 

Place 1 log on cutting board. With serrated knife, cut warm log crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick diagonal slices.

You will be tempted to just eat it right now as you slice it!

 

do what I did and eat the little end piece...no one will ever know!

Place slices upright on cookie sheets. Repeat with remaining logs. Bake slices 15 minutes to allow biscotti to dry out. Cool completely on sheets on wire racks. Biscotti will harden as they cool. Store biscotti in tightly covered container.
 

Now brew a pot of coffee!