Chocolate Peppermint Biscotti

After successfully making gingerbread biscotti two days earlier, I decided to try my hand at another biscotti variation. This time another set of holiday flavors were on my mind – chocolate and peppermint. Not being thrilled with the chocolate peppermint recipes that I was coming across, I decided to use a chocolate almond recipe as my base and tweak it to make it peppermint. The difference between this recipe and the other ones that I found floating around the internet was the lack of butter used. Every single recipe that I was coming across had butter! Having just read that a true Italian biscotti is made without butter, I wanted to maintain some level of authenticity – though I’m sure chocolate and candy canes are probably not the most authentic Italian mix out there. Perhaps for my next biscotti batch I’ll try a butter-based recipe, but so far I’ve been extremely pleased with the way the non-butter recipes have turned out.

You’ll note that in this recipe I used 1 Tbsp. of shortening. This was to compensate for the fact that I was using cocoa powder rather than semisweet chocolate.

Chocolate Peppermint Biscotti

1 cup cocoa powder
1 Tbsp. shortening
1 cup (210 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar
1 3/4 cups (230 grams) all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon (4 grams) instant espresso powder
1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 tsp. peppermint extract
3/4 cup peppermint candy canes, crushed

1/3 cup dark chocolate chips, melted with a little shortening
1/3 cup mint chips, melted with a little shortening

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C).

In a large bowl, sift or whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, brown sugar, espresso powder, baking soda and salt.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the eggs and vanilla and peppermint extracts until combined (about 30 seconds). Add the dry ingredients mixture and beat until a stiff dough forms, adding the peppermint candy about half way through mixing.

With floured hands divide the dough in half. On a lightly floured surface roll each half of dough into a log about 10 inches (25 cm) long and 2 inches (5 cm) wide. Transfer the logs to the prepared baking sheet, spacing about 3 inches (7.5 cm) apart. Bake until almost firm to the touch, about 35 - 40 minutes (logs will spread during baking). Remove from the oven, place on wire rack, and let cool for 10 minutes.

Using a long spatula transfer the logs to a cutting board. Using a serrated knife cut the dough into slices 3/4 inch (2 cm) thick on the diagonal. Arrange the slices cut-side down on the baking sheet. Bake 15 minutes. Turn the slices over and bake until crisp and dry, about 15 minutes longer. Remove from oven and let cool on wire rack.

Drizzle with melted chocolate and then with the mint chip mixture.

Store in an airtight container.

Makes about 30 biscotti

The final product surprised me in two ways…

1) The candy canes were gone after baking!! I should have thought this would have happened as they are simply just sugar based candies – however, I was still slightly surprised.
2) The biscotti had the same exact flavor as the beloved Girl Scout cookie – Thin Mints. The texture was clearly different as this is a harder product, but the flavor was spot on.


Unfortunately I did not take a picture of the beautiful final product – dark biscotti base drizzled in brown and light green “frostings.”

I keep the final product in the freezer, as I do with most of my cookie products. I just can’t stand the taste of cookies that have been sitting at room temperature for a few days. They always seem to take on some new flavor that really shouldn’t be there. I kept half of the batch for myself (it’s just about gone…) and then sent the other half to Afghanistan – I will be curious to find out how they held up!