chocolate-chip biscotti

Last summer, for a friend's wedding, I baked over 200 biscotti, all because I happened to mention to that friend's mother a great recipe I'd found, months before the July ceremony. The bride's mother had flipped when she heard me mention the Italian cookie, and she begged me to make some for the wedding favors, which were personalized coffee bags with individually wrapped biscotti.

I made three kinds: double-chocolate, lemon pistachio, and chocolate anise. What I made today was a variation of the last one--I left out the anise (many people dislike it) and, because of availability issues, used salted, not unsalted, butter, compensating by neglecting the additional salt completely; and I combined bittersweet and semisweet chips to get the full cup. Here's the original recipe, though, taken from Giada De Laurentiis' Family Dinners.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temp
(1 tsp. ground anise seed)
2 large eggs
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350degrees. Line a large, heavy baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat the sugar, butter and anise seed in a large bowl to blend. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the flour mixture and beat until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Form the dough into one long 3-inch-wide log. Transfer it to the prepared cookie sheet. Bake until light golden, about 30 minutes. Cool on baking sheet for 30 minutes.

Place the log onto a cutting board. Using a serrated knite, cut the log into diagonal 1/2 to 3/4-inch slices. Arrange the slices cut side down on a cookie sheet. Bake until pale golden, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a rack and cool completely.