Easy chocolate hazelnut biscotti recipe

Every so often, I get a real craving for everything hazelnut, preferably combined with chocolate. The simplest thing to make are plain hazelnut cookies or chocolate hazelnut cookies and biscotti just for a little bit of Italian charm…

Ingredients:

¾ cup of butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

2 medium eggs

1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

2 ½ cup all-purpose flour (wholewheat if you life!)

2 tablespoon cocoa powder

¾ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup hazelnuts, lightly crushed

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C) and grease and flour a cookie sheet or line a sheet with parchment paper, if you prefer.

In a bowl, cream together the room temperature butter and sugar for several minutes, adding the eggs and vanilla extract, mixing until smooth.

Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt and stir carefully into the wet ingredients. Lastly, add in the hazelnuts to the mixture.

Shape the dough into two equal logs, approximately 12 inches long, placing the logs onto a baking sheet and flatten them into about a half inch thickness.

Bake logs for about 25 minutes and allow to cool slightly. Cut the baked logs with a serrated knife, slicing diagonally into half inch wide slices.

Lay the slices flat on the cookie sheet and return them to the oven for another 10 minutes of baking, or until hard and crunchy.

For extra decadence, dip the biscotti halfway into melted chocolate or spread on a chocolate hazelnut spread. Of course, one is never enough...