More biscotti with some new additions...

With all of the cooking and baking we've been doing the last week, the last thing I needed to do was bake some more, but when has that ever stopped us? I had a handful of dried cherries from a bag that we have been snacking from and made one of our all-time favorite treats - biscotti!

We've made quite a few different varieties if you've ever looked in the biscotti section of our recipe area on the left hand side of the blog, but the Orange-Infused Cherry-Almond Biscotti I made today was a new-to-us flavor combination for these crisp cookies.

The dough was a little drier and crumbly than I'm used to at first - most of the other biscotti we've made have been fairly sticky when you get to the point of moving the logs to the baking sheets. It may not look like it will be cohesive when all the ingredients are added, but the dough does come together once you scoop it out of the mixing bowl and knead it a couple times. The texture of these cookies was in between those rock hard biscotti that need to be dunked to be enjoyed and the softer type that has a few tablespoons of butter.

I found that the logs did not spread nearly as much either, so if you like a shorter biscotti, you may want to pat the dough down a bit. Almond extract, fresh orange juice and orange zest add a bright note with the cherries adding a bit of sweetness and chew. The recipe called for slivered almonds, but I chopped whole almonds instead for added crunch. These would be good to give away as gifts drizzled or dipped in a bit of melted white chocolate.

Recipes
Orange-Infused Cherry-Almond Biscotti