Today we are happy to welcome Heather from HeatherChristo.com to our table! Heather is a seasoned hostess and party planner. Every party she throws is thoughtfully created, has a certain casual elegance about it and the food looks divine. Secretly, we hope to one day pull a chair up to her table and experience one of her parties in it’s entirety…especially if these cookies are offered with coffee. ~Chris Ann & Kristin
Please share your favorite cookie recipe HERE at our link up Cookie Exchange.
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One of my traditional Christmas Season Cookies is this Chocolate, Pistachio and Cranberry Biscotti. I have always loved biscotti, and it is a favorite with afternoon coffee in my house.
Not only is this crispy biscotti intense in chocolaty flavor, but it is also studded with delicious and festive green pistachios and red dried cranberries. You get sweet, tart, nutty and rich flavors all in one cookie.
I have also found this to be a really lovely gift. I package it up with a tin of tea and some honey or sugar sticks for a complete package.
Chocolate Pistachio and Cranberry Biscotti, makes 18 large cookies
¾ cup minced dark chocolate (I used 72% cocoa), finely chopped
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 ¾ cups flour
1/3 cup dark cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 cup raw pistachios
½ cup dried cranberries
1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Prepare a sheet pan with a sheet of parchment or a silpat.
2. In a small bowl, combine the finely chopped chocolate and the brown sugar.
3. In the bowl of a standing mixer, whip the eggs and vanilla until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
4. Add the sugar/chocolate mixture and mix on high another 2 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
6. Add the dry ingredients to the mixer and combine until you have a cookie dough.
7. Add the pistachios and the cranberries and gently mix them in.
8. Using a well floured surface (and hands) form a log out of the dough, at the center it should be about 1” thick, and about 4” across.
9. Put the cookie dough on the sheet pan with a silpat or with parchment paper, and bake the biscotti log for 40 minutes.
10. Let the log cool slightly, and then transfer the log to a cutting board.
11. With a serrated knife, slice the biscotti into ½” thick wide pieces.
12. Lay them on their sides on the same baking sheet.
13. Bake them for 15 minutes, and then flip the cookies and bake an additional 15 minutes on the other side.
14. Let cool and enjoy!
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Thank you to Heather from HeatherChristo.com for sharing your recipe at our table! ~Chris Ann & Kristin
About Heather…
Heather Christo’s passion for food began as a child, when she learned to cook as she helped her mother in the kitchen. Born and raised in a large family in Seattle, her father was in politics, and her mother was a classically French-trained cook. The combination of her parents created massive-scale entertaining in the home for years. She grew up around the constant excitement and energy of huge cocktail fundraisers and elaborate dinner parties.
You will most often find Heather in the kitchen or the garden with her girls, blogging about her life and recipes on HeatherChristo.com, cooking up extravagant family dinners and fetes for friends or in her monthly columns on entertaining at TheDailyMeal.com; and in Seattle’s GRAY magazine. She is a contributor at Martha Stewart Radio, CNN’s Eatocracy, TheNest.com, Fitness.com and more as well as multiple issues of Traditional Home, Seattle Home and Lifestyle, Family Circle and House Beautiful, Parenting, Cosmopolitan, Cosmopolitan Middle East, In Style, Picky Palate and Simply the Best. Regular contributor to the New Day Northwest program, and has contributed on multiple episodes of The Better Show, The Daily Buzz and Good Morning America Health.
