Name: Almond Biscotti
Prep time: 20 minutes
Total time: 2½ hours (includes cooling)
Yield: Makes about 42 cookies
Ingredients: 1 cup (200 g) sugar; ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted; 3 Tbsp. brandy; 2 tsp. pure almond extract; 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract; 1 cup whole almonds with skin, lightly toasted, cooled, and coarsely chopped; 3 large eggs, lightly beaten; 2¾ (344 g) cups all-purpose flour; 1½ tsp. baking powder; ¼ tsp. kosher salt

A pile of almond biscotti on a plate with glasses of dessert wine.

Photo by Marcus Nilsson

Featured as a sweet treat to serve alongside coffee in Gourmet’s January 2009 Northern Italian entertaining menu, this almond biscotti recipe gets a punch of flavor from both almond and vanilla extracts and oomph from a pour of brandy. You’ll also stir lots of chopped skin-on toasted almonds into the sticky dough before giving it the twice-baked treatment indicative of the best biscotti recipes.

Here, the biscotti is baked on an ungreased baking sheet; for peace of mind, feel free to line yours with parchment paper if you’re worried about the dough sticking.

This almond biscotti is one of our favorite Christmas cookie recipes; producing crunchy cookies that taste even better a day or two after baking. Once you learn the technique, tweak the add-ins to suit your tastes: Mix in orange zest, lemon zest, or dried fruit—try cherries or cranberries, drizzled with white chocolate. Switch the almonds out for hazelnuts or pistachios, or dunk the cooled biscotti cookies halfway into melted chocolate.