Hello Recipe Club,

Everyone likes cookies, right? The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion, The Essential Cookie Cookbook is just hitting the shelves at your favorite bookstore or online at Amazon.

Fresh baked cookies right out of the oven - surely one of life's greatest delights. The expert bakers at King Arthur Flour have known this for more than a century. Now, they're ready to share their passion and expertise with The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion: The Essential Cookie Cookbook (Countryman Press; November 2004; $29.95/Hardcover; ISBN 088150-659-1). A beautifully designed collection of the world's best cookie recipes, it reveals all the secrets for making homemade, mouthwatering cookies for any occasion.

Each day this week, the bakers at King Arthur Flour will share one of their favorite cookie recipes with us....then, as if that wasn't good enough, they will give us tips and variations on each of these awesome recipes! Today's recipe is for Biscotti.

Signature Secrets ® Culinary Thickener thickens instantly - hot or cold, no lumps, no added taste, freeze/thaw stable. Now available online.

Essential American-Style Biscotti

The cookies we know and love in America—the chocolate chip, oatmeal, peanut butter and sugar cookies that line the shelves of the supermarket cookie section, and whose recipes and variations fill our cookbooks—are far removed from traditional Italian biscotti. The cookies most of us grew up with are softer, more tender, crunchier and lighter. American-style biscotti, likewise, are lighter and more tender than their Italian counterpart. Though not particularly suited to dunking in coffee or wine, they're appreciated by kids, or anyone whose idea of a cookie runs more toward a delicate cutout gingerbread cookie than a teething biscuit.

Makes 14 to 16 biscotti

Ingredients:

6 tablespoons (3 ounces) butter
2/3 cup (4 3/4 ounces) sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 large eggs
2 cups (8 1/2 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) one large (about 18 x 13-inch) baking sheet.

In a medium-sized bowl, beat the butter, sugar, salt, vanilla and baking powder until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Beat in the eggs, the batter may look slightly curdled. At low speed of your mixer, add the flour, stirring until smooth, the dough will be quite soft and sticky, but should hold its shape when you drop it from a spoon.

Transfer the dough to the prepared baking sheet and shape it into a rough log about 14 inches long. It will be about 2 1/2 inches wide and about 3/4-inch thick.

Bake the dough for 25 minutes. Remove it from the oven and allow it to cool on the pan anywhere from 5 to 25 minutes, just work it into the schedule of whatever else you're doing in the kitchen. 

Using a spray bottle filled with room-temperature water, lightly but thoroughly spritz the log, making sure to cover the sides as well as the top. Softening the crust just this little bit will make slicing the biscotti much easier.

Reduce the oven temperature to 325°F. Wait another 5 minutes, then slice the biscotti in 1/2- to 3/4-inch slices. How thick you slice them depends on a number of factors. This recipe, without nuts or any add-ins, is easy to slice thin, once you start adding chips, almonds, raisins and other chunky ingredients, a 3/4-inch slice becomes more realistic. 

When you're slicing, be sure to cut straight up and down, perpendicular to the pan, if you cut at an angle, biscotti may be thicker at the top than the bottom and they'll topple over during their second bake.

Set the biscotti, on edge, on the prepared baking sheet. Return the biscotti to the oven, and bake them for 25 minutes. Remove them from the oven and transfer them to a rack to cool. Once they're cool, store airtight, to preserve their texture. 

If biscotti aren't as crunchy as you'd like (and the weather is dry), store them uncovered, overnight, to continue drying. Biscotti can be stored at room temperature for one week, for longer storage, wrap airtight and freeze.

Baking time: 50 minutes

Foodservice Rewards Buy a Case. Earn a bundle! Reap rewards for Nestlé, Schwan, P&G, Hormel, Campbell and many others. It's FREE and as easy as 1-2-3!

Pistachio-Cherry Biscotti

Golden-green, mildly salty shelled pistachios and deep red, sweet and tangy dried cherries complement each other beautifully, both, in color and flavor.

Makes 16 to 18 biscotti

Ingredients:

1 recipe American-Style Biscotti (recipe above)
1/16 to 1/8 teaspoon strong cherry flavor, to taste (optional)
1 cup (4 ounces) shelled pistachios
1 cup (4 5/8 ounces) dried cherries, sweet or sour

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) one baking sheet.

Prepare the biscotti dough, substituting cherry flavor for the vanilla, if desired. Stir in the pistachios and cherries. Shape and bake biscotti as directed in the essential recipe. If the cherries you used are very fresh and moist, you may find the biscotti still fairly soft at the end of the baking time. For crunchier biscotti, bake for an additional 5 to 10 minutes.

Baking time: 50 to 60 minutes

Catalina Offshore Products Taste Seafood as It Was Meant to Be! Half the Price, Twice as Fresh! High Quality Fish and Shellfish, Including Sushi/Sashimi Grade Seafood.

Cranberry-Orange Biscotti

This classic muffin and quick bread flavor pairing translates beautifully to biscotti. These make a lovely dessert at Thanksgiving, if you can tear folks away from the pumpkin pie!

Makes 16 to 18 biscotti

Ingredients:

1 recipe American-Style Biscotti (recipe above)
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) orange juice
1 tablespoon grated orange zest, not packed*
1 cup (4 5/8 ounces) dried cranberries
1 cup (4 ounces) toasted walnuts

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) one baking sheet.

Prepare the biscotti dough, adding the orange juice and zest once the egg/sugar mixture is fully beaten. Shape and bake biscotti as directed in the essential recipe.

*Measure the orange zest into the tablespoon without packing it. It'll take about half a large orange to yield a tablespoon of zest.

Baking time: 50 to 55 minutes