I’m in my last week here at Augie, and in my house and as I was brainstorming recipes for this week, I realized that I was in very short supply of many ingredients. I needed a recipe that utilized basic ingredients and was a mellow way to de-stress amongst the finishing of classes and packing up my home. So, after some thought and scouring our kitchen, I landed on vanilla biscotti. 
These biscotti are simple in ingredients, but are easily adaptable to fit whatever flavors you have or are craving. They are the perfect accompaniment to a big cup of coffee in your mornings or an afternoon cup of hot chocolate. 
If you’ve ever tried biscotti, you may have memories of incredibly hard to bite down on almond cookies. My first memory of biscotti is eating mini ones from a Costco pack and being completely confused as to why anyone would want to eat these seemingly stale cookies. Now, after learning more about them, I’ve still never liked the incredibly hard biscotti that can truly only be eaten with coffee. 
This recipe, however, remains crisp and crunchy while not being overly hard or stale tasting. And with the addition of a dip in dark or semi-sweet chocolate, they taste incredibly similar to Milano sandwich cookies. 
These cookies are easy to master, simple in ingredients, and the perfect addition to a warm cup of cocoa and a good book. 
Best of luck with your recipe escapades, stay safe, cook on and thank you for following along on this quarantine adventure. 
Ingredients:

• 6 T softened butter 
• ⅔ c sugar 
• ½ t salt 
• 3-3.5 t vanilla extract 
• 1 ½ t baking powder 
• 2 large eggs at room temperature 
• 2 cups unbleached All-Purpose flour 

Time to Cook: 

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease a large baking sheet 
2. In a bowl (or large pot if you are like me, and no longer have bowls in your home), beat the butter, sugar, salt, vanilla and baking powder. Mix until it looks smooth and creamy. I didn’t have an electric mixer, so this took about 15 minutes.
3. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. At this point, the batter might look a bit curdled-that is okay!
4. Slowly incorporate the flour and stir until smooth while remaining careful to not overmix and overwork the flour. The dough should be sticky.
5. Divide the dough in half, take each half and plop it onto your pan. Then form them each into a log. It should be about 9-10” x 2” and ¾” tall. Then, wet your fingers or a spatula and smooth down the logs. Make sure they are even in appearance so they will cook evenly and look extra nice.
6. Bake for 25 minutes. 
7. Remove and cool the logs for about 15-20 mins.
8. Reduce oven Temp to 325 degrees. 
9. Biscotti’s are twice baked so at this point you have finished the first bake and are moving into the second half of the recipe. Find a serrated knife and use a spray bottle to spritz the logs. Doing this will reduce the crumbs once you slice them. 
10. Now, cut the log crosswise into about ½” or ¾” slices. You can also cut on the diagonal in order to get longer biscotti.
11. Set the biscotti back on your baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes. They will be golden brown and may seem to be a bit soft towards the middle-that is okay, they will harden as they cool.
12. Once fully cooled, melt a mixture of semi-sweet and dark chocolate chips in the microwave, stirring every 20 seconds. Take the chocolate out and dip each biscotti’s bottom into the chocolate. Then place them onto parchment paper or tin foil until they are fully cooled.
13. Prepare your cup of cocoa and enjoy! 

Variations: 

• You can replace half the vanilla flavor with any other type of flavoring or extract that you enjoy. A popular one is almond extract. 
• Try sprinkling the top with coarse sanding sugar. 
• You can add pistachios, pecans, other nuts or any dried fruit.