My household has always had a custom of preparing wonderful ‘festive’ biscotti for Xmas - we enjoy them by themselves and as a truly tasty snack with late afternoon coffee.

We had an old family recipe, that we made for decades, but last year we decided to add a bit of variety and tried out a different recipe that I discovered.

I acquired it from a first rate recipe collection, and it turned out really delicious.

And here it is for you to make for yourselves:

Christmas Biscotti Recipe

You will require :

Half a cup of butter or margarine
One cup of sugar
Two and a half cups of baking powder
One teaspoon of crushed aniseed
Two whole eggs
One egg yolk
One egg white
Three cups of flour
Half a cup of chopped candied red cherries
Half a cup of mixed candied fruit
One tablespoon of finely shredded orange peel
One egg white
One tablespoon of sugar

Directions :

Use an electric mixer on medium/high speed to beat the butter or margarine in a large bowl for 30 seconds.

Now add the cup of sugar, the baking powder, and the aniseed and beat until it is well mixed. Now beat in the whole eggs and the egg yolk.

Now add the flour, beating in as much as possible using the food mixer, and then stirring the rest in by hand. Add the candied fruit and orange peel and stir them in by hand.

Split the dough into two equal halves and shape each half into loaf shape of approximately 11″ x 2″ X 1″. Lightly grease a cookie sheet, and place both of these ‘loaves’ on the sheet.

Put the egg white and one teaspoon of water into a cup and stir well together, then brush the mix over the two dough loaves.

Now sprinkle the tablespoon of sugar over them.

Preheat an oven to 375 degrees F, and bake in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes until they are light brown. Remove and place on a cookie sheet to cool for 60 minutes or so. When cool, cut each, diagonally, into slices of about half an inch wide.

Put these slices ‘cut side up’ onto an un-greased cookie sheet, and bake in a preheated oven at 325 degrees F for 10 minutes.

Flip the slices over and bake for another 10 to 13 minutes until they are crispy.

Remove and allow to cool on a wire rack.

This recipe should make around 35 biscotti.

When they have cooled down enough, you can store them in a normal biscuit tin, or anything else that will keep them dry. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

If, like us, you want a change from your normal christmas cooking, try looking through a few of the online collections of holiday recipes recipes, you never know what you will find. In the future, I plan on getting some delicious new cake recipes for the festivities - anything will be tastier than christmas pudding.