Chocolate, orange, almond and cranberry biscotti

This sounds like a really festive bake but it's made in the middle of summer! It will definitely be a great gift at the end of the year when it's 'C' time... just can't bring myself to say it in August! This recipe is of course inspired by the current season of the Great British Bake Off. It was biscuit week in week 2 and they made biscotti. I've baked Italian biscotti once before and they weren't hugely successful so I was really pleased with how these turned out.  Clearly, I have to work on shaping these as my biscotti were huge! They passed the crunch test and tasted delicious. The flavours work really well together and it really tasted very festive with the chocolate, cranberry and orange. I'm definitely baking more biscotti in the future and might be more adventurous with flavour combinations. 

I'm sending this to Treat Petite hosted by Kat from the Baking Explorer and co hosted by Stuart from Cakeyboi. The theme this month is The Great British Bake Off.

 adding dried cranberries, chocolate chips and blanched almonds 

 Love how the orange zest turns the eggs very orange! 

 biscotti loaves 

 sliced after the first round of baking

 biscotti! 

 

375g plain flour
1.5 teaspoon baking powder
200g caster sugar
100g dark chocolate chips
75g blanched almonds (bring a pot of water to boil, add the almonds for 1 minute then strain. Remove the skins by squeezing the end of the almond)
100g dried cranberries
3 eggs
zest of 1 orange
1 teaspoon orange flavoured water

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Mix flour, baking powder and sugar. 
• Add in the chocolate chips, dried cranberries and blanched almonds and mix. 
• In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with the orange zest and orange flavoured water (or fresh orange juice).
• Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture and mix well. 
• Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll into two fat sausages. 
• Place on a baking tray spaced apart, allowing room for spreading. 
• Bake for approximately 25-30 minutes. 
• Reduce the oven temperature to 140C. 
• Allow the biscotti to cool for 10 minutes then slice diagonally using a bread knife. 
• Place the slices facing up on a baking tray and bake for a further 20 minutes or until crispy.