Two Toned Biscotti

These two toned biscotti are crispy, dunkable and a great combination of chocolate and vanilla-berry flavour.

Most people know I have a thing for making biscotti. Every year, the holiday baskets get at least one variety tucked inside, but just because there's no snow on the ground (finally!) doesn't mean the crisp, dunkable cookies are off the menu. I love making the cookies for their ease and versatility - you can have any flavour under the sun, add nuts or not, and making them gluten free, vegan or both is a snap compared to something like cakes or sugar cookies.

The funny thing is, when it comes to eating biscotti, I take a pass. I'm definitely in the chewy cookie camp, and I never liked even dunking chocolate chip cookies in milk, so the whole "dip in your coffee" aspect is kind of lost on me. That said, almost everyone around me - even haters of the gourmet, coffee-shop biscotti - love mine on their own, so I guess I could give them another go some day! One thing I had always wanted to do but never tried was making a two-flavour biscotti. Originally my idea was to make something akin to a marble cake, with random bits of vanilla and chocolate throughout the cookies. However, for simplicity's sake (and because I wasn't sure if the cookies would bake into a cohesive whole) I opted to simply layer the dough, which made for an equally stunning presentation. Rather than go for "plain" vanilla on the bottom, though, I folded in some pulverized freeze dried berries, which added a hint of flavour but no real colour to speak of. In the future, I would definitely leave some of the fruit in larger "bits" for that visual pop, but the flavour is spot on!

One thing I forget about biscotti when I haven't made them in a while is that the initial log does swell and spread in the oven slightly. Layering the slightly heavier chocolate dough on top of the vanilla forced the log to become wider than normal, which was fine but made the sliced fingers very long. To compensate, I sliced each cookie in half crosswise so that it was more manageable, and next time I'd make sure that the log was long and very narrow before going into the oven!

Two Toned Biscotti
Makes ~ 18 pieces
½ cup unsweetened cashew milk (or regular milk)
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
Pinch salt
1 tbsp vanilla
2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ tbsp baking powder
2 tbsp cocoa
7g freeze-dried berries, pulverized (I used raspberries and strawberries)

1. Preheat the oven to 375F and line a baking sheet with parchment or SilPat.
2. In a bowl, beat together the cashew milk, eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla.
3. Add the flours and baking powder, mixing well.
4. Divide dough into 2 bowls.
5. Add cocoa to one bowl and mix well to combine.
6. Add the berries to the second bowl and mix well to combine.
7. Spread the berry dough layer into a long log on the cookie sheet. Top with an even layer of the cocoa dough and shape with wet hands into a long, smooth rectangle about ½” tall.
8. Bake for 30 minutes, then cool 10 minutes on a rack.
9. Slice on the diagonal into ½” slices, cutting extra-long ones in half crosswise so that everything is the same length.
10. Place the slices cut side up back onto the baking sheet and bake for 8 minutes each side.

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 142.3
Total Fat: 1.4 g
Cholesterol: 31.0 mg
Sodium: 17.1 mg
Total Carbs: 29.1 g
Dietary Fiber: 1.5 g
Protein: 4.2 g