After a couple of years without real winter in DC, it’s back with a vengeance this year. During the latest round of winter weather I tried to quell my boredom by playing in the kitchen. Problem was, the storm hit the morning after I returned from a business trip and there wasn’t a whole lot going on in my kitchen.

I did have all the ingredients to make what looked like a delicious pistachio and dried cherry biscotti recipe. While I’d never tried it myself, it seemed simple enough.

The dough was fragrant and a beautiful yellow hue, and I liked the flavor combination of pistachio, sour cherry, almond and orange. But, the recipe itself just didn’t work for me. It wasn’t an outright failure, but it just didn’t meet my expectations.  There was not nearly enough dough to follow the directions and make two logs of dough, each 16″ long, 2″ wide. The cookies are very difficult to slice. Chopping up the cherries before folding into the dough might help the slicing go more smoothly, as well as reduce the likelihood the cherries taste burnt.

Anyone else have a favorite biscotti recipe to share? What tips would you provide to a biscotti newbie?