Chocolate Lover's Biscotti

 Ingredients

1 ¾ cups                      (211 grams)                unbleached all-purpose flour

1/3 cup                         (28 grams)                 dark cocoa powder

2 teaspoons               (10 grams)                  baking powder

½ teaspoon                (3 grams)                   fine sea salt

¾ cup                         (150 grams)               granulated sugar

6 tablespoons            (83 grams)                  unsalted butter - room temperature

3 large                         (150 grams)               eggs

1 ½ teaspoons           (7 grams)                    vanilla extract

1 ¼ cup                        (220 grams)              semi-sweet chocolate chips

½ cup                           (90 grams)               white baking chips

1.   Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

2.   Cover a cookie sheet with  heavy aluminum foil or use 2 sheets of regular aluminum foil

3.   Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and sea salt into a bowl.

4.   Add the room temperature butter and sugar to the bowl of your stand mixer. Mix these two ingredients for 1 minute on slow speed.

5.   Adjust the speed of the mixer to medium slow (3 on a KitchenAid mixer) and add the eggs one at a time to the dough.  Allow each egg to incorporate before adding the next egg. After you have added all of the eggs, add the vanilla extract and continue to mix until it is incorporated.

6.   Stop the mixer to add the dry sifted ingredients. Turn the mixer back on to slow speed and mix just until the dry ingredients are incorporated.  Be careful not to over mix at this step.

7.   When the dry ingredients are incorporated, stop the mixer and add the chocolate and white chips to the dough.  Turn the mixer on again on slow speed and mix just until the chips are incorporated.  Again be careful not to over mix the dough.

8.   Using a bowl scraper or spoon remove ½ of the dough and place it on the foil covered cookie sheet. Put a little water on your hands and shape that dough into a log that is about 2 inches wide and 1 ½ inches high. I cannot tell you how long the log should be because I am not sure how much of the dough you actually transferred to the cookie sheet at this time.

9.   Now transfer the remainder of the dough to the cookie sheet leaving ample room between the logs to allow for expansion.  Again put some water on your hands and shape this dough into a log that is 2 inches wide and 1 ½ inches high.

10.               Place the cookie sheet with the dough logs into a refrigerator for 30 minutes to cool down the butter.  If you bake the logs without cooling them down first, the logs will spread out too much and the biscotti will be flat.

11.               After the dough logs have cooled, place the cookie sheet in the oven and bake for 35 minutes. 

12.               Remove the cookie sheet from the oven and leave the baked logs on the sheet to cool for 15 minutes.

13.               Reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees.

14.               After the logs have cooled be very careful in transferring them to a cutting board.  You do not want the logs to break when you are transferring them.  You may find it easier to transfer the logs using the foil that is on the cookie sheet.

15.               Once the logs are on the cutting board, use a very sharp serrated knife to slice the biscotti on a diagonal making each biscotti about ½ to ¾ of an inch wide.

16.               Reline the cookie sheet with aluminum foil if you removed it when transferring the logs to the cutting board.  Return the cut biscotti to the cookie sheet, placing them cut side down.

17.               Bake the biscotti for 12 minutes and then remove from the oven.  Carefully turn the biscotti over and return it to the oven and bake for another 12 minutes.

18.               Remove the cookie sheet from the oven and then transfer the biscotti to a wire rack to cool.