12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies - Banana Bread Biscotti

It's amazing how fast this week went by. Before I knew it, it was Thursday and I realized I hadn't yet made my cookies for this week. I still figured I had time though to make them and post them on Thursday night. No worries, right? There was only one problem, I was out of flour. So, I headed over to my local grocery store, saw that flour was on sale for $0.99, and . . . saw that it was all gone. Oh well, so much for making the cookies on Thursday night.

As a result, I had to go back to the store this morning, luckily found that the new shipment of flour had arrived, and began baking. If I only knew that the flour was the least of my troubles.

I decided to make the Cinnamon and Banana Bread Biscotti from Picky Palate's site.


I had my eye on this recipe for quite a while but didn't have the cinnamon chips for it until now. So, the time had come. I began making the biscotti dough.

That's when I encountered my second problem. The "dough" in my bowl was not dough at all. It was more like really thick cake batter. How in the world was I supposed to shape this into logs like the recipe stated? I'm not sure what went wrong, or if this actually is the way it's supposed to be. The recipe said to add the wet ingredients to the dry, but I did it the other way around. Does anybody know if that would make so much of a difference? I wouldn't think so, but you never know.

I did the only thing I could to try and fix this. I added more flour, about a cup more. The dough looked a little better but was still very wet and sticky. So, I stuck it in the freezer hoping that it would reach some sort of moldable state. That seemed to do the trick and I was able to get two logs onto a cookie sheet and start baking.

That's when I encountered my third problem. I noticed that the texture of the biscotti seemed a little different from what I was used to. After the first baking and the toasting of the first side, the biscotti seemed more like country bread loaves than cookies. They also felt a little spongy. Again, maybe this is how it's supposed to be. After all, the title of the recipe does say "Banana Bread Biscotti." Thankfully, after the final baking and leaving them out to cool, they did crunch up considerably and resembled the biscotti that I'm familiar with.



As for the taste, they do have a lot of wonderful banana flavor so I was pleased with that. But, as for making them again, well, I think I'll stick with my tried and true biscotti recipes from now on.


Cinnamon and Banana Bread Biscotti (adapted from Picky Palate)

3/4 c. mashed over-ripe bananas
1 egg
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 3/4 c. + 2 Tbsp. flour

1/2 c. + 2 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon (I used 1 1/4 tsp. cinnamon + 1/4 tsp. cardamom)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. cinnamon chips

Preheat oven to 350F.

Combine bananas, egg, brown sugar, and vanilla in a bowl; mix until combined. In another bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and cinnamon chips. Add wet ingredients to dry until combined.

Divide dough into 2 equal parts and place onto a silpat lined baking sheet 4 inches apart from each other. Form each piece of dough into a 7 inch log, about 2 inches wide. Bake for 25 minutes, remove from oven, and slice immediately into 1/2" strips, on the diagonal, using a serrated knife. (Picky Palate's site says to let it cool for 10 min. before slicing, but I've found that it's easier if you do this step immediately after the first baking. If you wait for it to cool, the biscotti will be more likely to crumble when you try to slice it.)

Reduce heat to 250F (I set my oven on 325F). Place slices back onto cookie sheet and bake for 15 min. on each side or until crisped. (I've found that you get a more even crunch to your biscotti if you do a baking on each side instead of just one single baking on one side) Let cool completely.

If desired, you can dip them in melted white chocolate like Picky Palate did, but I didn't have any so I just skipped this step.

This recipe is linked to:
Prairie Story's Recipe Swap Thursday
EKat's Kitchen's Friday Potluck
Family Friendly Fridays
What's Cookin' in the Kitchen Fridays
Friday Favorites
Vegetarian Foodie Fridays
Food Trip Friday

Fat Camp Fridays
Homemade Holidays

Week 7 Twelve Weeks of Christmas: