Cranberry Orange Biscotti for Thanksgiving

We always have a tray of biscotti as part of our Thanksgiving desserts. We add a little of our Italian heritage to each course of our dinner. I use an orange lemon biscotti recipe of my grandmothers and add chopped dried cranberries to keep the biscotti in the Thanksgiving tradition.

I picked up a bag of dried cranberries at a market here on Cape Cod where they are grown. They were beautifully moist and added lovely color to the biscotti. Most of the time the dried cranberries are a little hard. Use a good quality brand with supple cranberries.

There are a lot of eggs in this recipe and you will find that the biscotti are not hard even after double baking.

Cranberry Orange Biscotti

Recipe Summary

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes @350º F

Yield: 12 Dozen

Dry Ingredients

10 cups flour

2 cups sugar

3 tablespoons baking powder

1 cup walnuts, chopped

2 cups dried cranberries, chopped

Wet Ingredients

12 eggs, beaten

1 lb. melted butter

1 zest and juice of a large lemon

1 zest and juice of a large orange

Frosting

1 cup confectionary sugar

3 1/2 tablespoons milk

2 drops of lemon juice

2 drops of extract (of your choice)

1 tablespoon orange juice

Zest of the orange

DOUGH

Mix the flour with the baking powder. Beat the sugar and eggs and butter together and mix well. Slowly mix in the flour mixture. Fold in the orange and lemon zest and the chopped walnuts. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for one hour.

ASSEMBLY

Form loaves about 1 1/2? x 12?. Place them on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet.

BAKE

Bake in the oven until they turn brown at the bottom approximately 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow them to cool on a rack. Slice on the diagonal and return them to the oven, toasting them for 3 minutes on one side. This will harden them but not toast them.

Do not cut them if you are freezing them, but freeze the loaves whole.

FROSTING

Frost when they are cool. Use Orange and lemon zest in the frosting and replace the milk with orange juice.

NOTE: Add 1 1/2 cups dried cranberries and drizzle with melted chocolate for a different variation.

NOTE: When making them for myself, I do not frost them but slice them thinly so that you can see the cranberries on the inside. They are very flavorful without frosting.

FROSTING

Add lemon juice and extract to the confectionary sugar. Slowly add in the milk until all confectionary sugar is mixed in and frosting is smooth. It should not be too thin or it will all drip off the cookies and dry transparent. The frosting should be thick enough so that it sits on the top of the cookie.

APPLYING THE FROSTING

If you are freezing them, do not cut on the diagonal, but freeze the loaves whole.

Put the loaves on wax paper and frost and allow them to dry. Cut them on the diagonal. You can cut them first and then drizzle the frosting over the top letting the frosting drip a little down the side. Of drizzle a little melted chocolate over the top.

NOTE: This recipe will frost approximately 3 dozen cookies.