CEIMB Rewind: Chocolate Almond Biscotti

I decided to do a Craving Ellie in My Belly rewind recipe this week. As most of you already know, I'm an annoyingly picky eater, and this week's pick of Banana Splits with Pineapple Brown Sugar Topping lands firmly on top of the list of foods I don't like. I'm really not much of a fruit eater, and I have a strong aversion to bananas in particular. And since I have been on an Ellie kick lately, I happened to have these pictures all set and ready to go for the blog. Turns out, I made these biscotti a couple weeks ago and never posted about them.

The group made this recipe all the way back on January 1st, 2009. Wow, that was way before I was lucky enough to be a member! I love making biscotti, and have shared other recipes before on my blog. I was eager to make Ellie's take on biscotti, since it would be combining two things I love: her recipes, and biscotti! As with most of her recipes, this one is easy to make. It's a basic biscotti dough, and I mixed in chocolate chips, chopped almonds, and dried cranberries. Ellie used dried cherries, but I didn't have any. She also uses orange zest, but I only had lemons, so I used lemon zest. I think it was fine with my subs, although I would like to try it her way sometime.

After you shape your dough into a log, and bake it for 25 minutes, you allow it to cool for about 10 minutes on a cooling rack. Then, you can slice your biscotti cookies and put them back into the oven for an addtional 10 minutes per side. Flipping the cookies and baking them on the other side ensures that great, characteristic crunch that makes biscotti so delicious, and they make great dunkers!

I don't know why I waited so long to make these, but I can tell you I'll be making them again and again. I have wrapped each biscotti individually and then I placed them in a freezer bag. They'll keep in the freezer for at least a couple months, and they thaw in less than an hour so they can be taken out sometime before you plan on eating one. I like to eat them in the afternoons with a cup of coffee; the nuts and dried fruit are just enough to give me some energy without feeling like I ate a whole meal in the middle of the day.

My apologies to Shandy of Pastry Heaven; she's this week's CEIMB host. I'm sorry I didn't make your pick, Shandy, but I didn't have anybody to make the banana splits for! Be sure to check out how the other members like them, though, over at the blogroll, here. And if you'd like the biscotti recipe, you can find it on Food Network's website, here.