Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti

These are the biscotti I’ve been seeking. Just the right amount of sturdy and sweet, scented with orange and studded with red and green. The easiest Christmas cookies on the plate—and also the ones I’ve hoarded away, perfect for snowy afternoons.

The trick to cutting the biscotti into perfect fingers is to do so while warm—the 10 minutes of cool time is perfect—and, using your fingertips, lightly dampen the surface of the logs with water just before cutting. For the first time ever, I experienced no crumbling! (Wait, that means fewer damaged cookies for the baker!) This made 30 perfect biscotti.

Often, when I’m making something that I haven’t made before but have enjoyed, I’m surprised when the recipe turns out just like the “real” thing. It’s a curious reaction but I had it again after making these delicious cranberry pistachio biscotti. A perfect crunch (the real key to any biscotti, imho), super balance between the sweet from the cranberries and the savory from the pistachios, and a wonderful hint of orange. And the recipe was straightforward and simple. A perfect combination, in my book.

The other nice thing about this recipe is that it makes a lot of biscotti, so if you have any left over (haha!) they can make a great holiday gift. There is really nothing more to say—no strange twists or head-scratching directions—except go make these now!

I have not made biscotti before so was looking forward to trying out the recipe. The biscotti came out very well and the use of the orange zest really help add great flavor to them. I do a lot of baking and was impressed at how well the recipe was written. The measurements were spot on for both the cup and gram measures. The instructions regarding how big to make the loafs were extremely helpful.

Go ahead, fellow dunkers out there, these biscotti don’t get soggy! And they’re delicious-no surprise as the combination of flavors here is already known to be fabulously harmonious.

I had never made biscotti before, but I found this recipe easy to follow. It’s basically a one-bowl cookie dough that gets baked twice. Since shelled pistachios are expensive and not always available, I purposefully bought whole pistachios for the test. For 1 1/4 cups (150g) shelled nuts, I needed 10 oz (284g) of pistachios with shells (I prepared them the night before; took about 20 minutes). The dough came together very easily and wasn’t sticky at all, so I didn’t need to dust my hands with flour when forming the loaves.

When cutting the biscotti, pieces of the crust came off of the first few slices. With a little practice and patience, I found the following method to work very well. Starting from the left (I’m right-handed, by the way), hold the sides and top of the loaf with your fingertips to support the crust—the “claw” position in knife skills 101—to the left of where you’re going to cut. Your fingers will protect the crust from the back-and-forth movement of the blade, and keep it from separating and falling off the loaf. GENTLY saw through the top crust, then about 1/3 of the way in, press the blade down at once to cut through the loaf.

For the second baking, the visual clue for doneness (evenly colored on both cut sides) was very helpful. I had a small amount of dark chocolate in the pantry, so I melted it to coat the tips of some of the cooled biscotti-a tweak that was welcomed by my tasters!

I love these biscotti and have been making them for years. They look like the holiday season with the dried red cranberries and the green pistachios. The orange zest adds a wonderful aroma.

The first few times I made this recipe, I misread it and cut the biscotti into 1/4-inch-thick slices. When I realized what I had done wrong, the next time I made them, I sliced the loaves into the 3/4-inch-thick slices called for. The thicker cookies are just as delicious as the thin ones, however, I really love the thin crisp ones. I bake them for only 4 to 5 minutes a side. The added bonus is that you get so many more biscotti out of each loaf, which for me makes them last longer. I can use some self control and limit myself to just a couple of those thin cookies. If I’m eating the thicker ones, I still eat 2 of them, leaving not that many behind.

While I am not a coffee drinker, I couldn’t resist trying these biscotti out for the holidays due to the festive red and green colors! They were super easy to pull together. Don’t be intimidated by the idea of making these! The flavors are great—the orange zest comes through and pairs well with the cranberry while the pistachios give a nice crunch. Looking forward to serving these to our holiday guests!

The sweetness is perfect. Just sweet enough to know it is a sweet.

The flavors are subtle. I would add a smidge more cinnamon (or mace?) and certainly more zest. I had 1 tablespoon of zest and think it could have had another teaspoon easily. And I will drizzle a confectioners’ sugar and water icing on top but add a bit of the zest to that, too, just to finish them nicely.

I’ve made biscotti a number of times I didn’t do the serrated knife, sawing thing. I learned long ago that doesn’t work for me. I have a large sharp plain blade knife and just cut in one fell swoop and it works. My concern was whether this would work with the dough being so dry to start. To my surprise they sliced just fine. I cut them about 3/4 inch thick and got 27 biscotti.

Normally I’ve found that cookies work pretty much the same way whether using regular all-purpose or gluten-free all-purpose flour, but in this case not so much. Having said that, the flavor was still outstanding and the results difficult not to consume even as I was slicing them for their second round in the oven and once out of the oven. The directions were very easy to follow. And the ones that worked were so flavorful and appealing that my taster can’t stop snitching away at them. If the flavor was that good with my iffy results, I can only imagine how good and true to form they will be using regular flour.

The problem with my seriously miscalculating the amount of flour arose during the initial baking. After 35 minutes in the oven, the biscotti felt firm but apparently were not firm enough. After cooling for 10 minutes, when I attempted to slice them, there were lots of crumbs and shards plus a few complete slices near the ends, which suggested that they needed more time overall to reach the point where slicing would work. For those that went into the oven for drying, 20 minutes total was perfect timing to produce a nice crisp, toasted cookie with clearly recognizable hints of vanilla and orange, a little cinnamon, nuts, and fruit.

The biscotti make a wonderful addition to any cookie platter. They are beautiful with the color contrast between the green pistachios and dark pink cranberries. I couldn’t find plain pistachios, so I used what the package called “lightly salted” nuts. I loved the contrast between the sweet cookie and the slightly salty nuts. I will definitely be adding these to my regular cookie rotation at the holidays.

I baked my biscotti a little too long during the second bake—some of them were a little hard. Next time I will remember that they crisp more after cooling. We enjoyed the extra crunchy ones dipped in hot coffee or tea. All of my taste testers loved the combo of sweet cookie, salty nuts, and sweet-tart cranberries highlighted with a hint of citrus and vanilla.

I couldn’t really taste any cinnamon in the baked cookies, but I think the spice added a bit of depth to the flavor that wouldn’t have been there otherwise. The flavor of the biscotti deepened after a couple of days in an airtight container. They were good right after baking but even better as they matured a bit.

The cookies from the middles of the logs had a line in the center of slightly moist dough. I was afraid they were underbaked and wouldn’t toast well, but they were fine after the second baking. The cookies were a bit crumbly when slicing. I had to remind myself to go slowly and let the knife do the work.