Salted walnut & chocolate chip biscotti

I’ve got my mind on Italy. I’ve toured the different regions and the dishes they make through the eyes of two wonderful Italian cooks. I’ll post links to the British show in a day or so, so if you want to, you can spend the weekend in Italy!

Yesterday, I made tomato sauce literally all day long with tomatoes and herbs from the garden. All that wonderfully acid-y tomato goodness needed to be off-set with something sweet, so I threw together some biscotti. Not just any biscotti, but biscotti studded with salty toasted walnuts and chocolate.

Give the walnut a rough-chop and toss with the kosher salt. Toast in a 300′ oven for 25 minutes until golden brown and fragrant. Set aside and allow to cool.

In a medium mixing bowl, cream together the sugar, vanilla  and eggs until pale and fluffy.

At one time, add the flour and baking powder to the butter and egg mixture.

Mix until just combined.

Toss in the salted walnuts and chocolate chips. Mix to combine on low-speed so you don’t break-up the walnut pieces.

Divide the dough in half and add each half to a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Form the dough into a rectangle shape about 1 to 1 1/2 inch tall. Run the sheets into a preheated oven at 325′ for 20 minutes, then rotate the sheets, moving the sheet on the lower rack to the rack above and moving the upper rack sheet to the lower rack for even cooking.  Bake an additional 20-25 minutes.

Pale, toasty brown…perfect!

At this point, the biscotti is tender and moist. If you’re like me, and intent on dipping your biscotti into hot coffee, they need to be baked a bit longer.

Using a sharp knife, slice 1 inch sections and lay them on their side on the parchment paper. Bake about 10-15 minutes more until well,….hard.

That’s tooth breaking hard, perfect for dunking into hot coffee and not falling apart.

~ Caroline

Here’s what you’ll need:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup sugar

6 tablespoons room temp unsalted butter

1 whole egg + 1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups walnut

1  1/4 cups mini semi-sweet chocolate morsels

Adapted from Joy the Baker