Pumpkin Biscotti

Party in the Pantry, Recipe #1: Pumpkin Biscotti

It's not usually hard for me to use up canned pumpkin, I LOVE it and I use it pretty often.  But, what to do with the rest of a can, about 2/3 of a cup of canned pumpkin, leftover after making Isa's pumpkin cupcakes?  I also had use for some raw, organic walnuts in my freezer, as well as an amount of flour bordering on oversupply (I have three, five pound bags) and two bags of Trader Joe's Organic Brown Sugar.

Then it struck me: Pumpkin Biscotti! Here they are:

I arrived at my recipe thanks to the wisdom of  my Italian Nonna, Bryanna Clark Grogan, whose recipe for almond biscotti served as my guide in this undertaking.  Grazie, nonna!

Pumpkin Biscotti   
Makes about 20 cookies

2/3 c. white organic sugar (organic sugars are vegan)

1/3 c. organic brown sugar (I use Trader Joe’s)

2/3 c. organic canned pumpkin

1 tsp vanilla

¼ tsp almond extract

2 tablespoons organic sunflower oil (or canola, peanut, any other non-olive oil that you like)

2 c. whole wheat white flour (I use King Arthur’s, but it’s not organic)

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp cinnamon (I lost my Vietnamese cinnamon from Penzey’s during the hurricane!)

1/3 c. organic, raw walnuts (Trader Joe’s again for me)

1/3 c. chocolate chips (Wegmans or any other non-dairy brand)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a shiny cookie sheet or jelly roll sheet, or cover a dark one with greased aluminum foil.  You can also use a Silpat on your baking sheet as I did.  I just about fit everything on one 9 x13 sheet, but I could have used the room of two sheets, really.  It's up to you if you want to do one or two sheets!  

In a large bowl, stir the wet ingredients (sugar through sunflower oil) together until well combined.  Place a sifter over the bowl, and add the dry ingredients (flour through cinnamon) and sift them into the bowl.  Stir together with a wooden spoon until a dough forms.  You can use your hands to knead in the walnuts and chocolate chips.  Or, separate the dough into two bowls and make one small batch of pumpkin chocolate chip and one of pumpkin walnut biscotti as I did.  Flour your hands (the dough is a little sticky) and form the dough into a log with squared-off ends, about three inches wide by about six inches long or so.  Here is my pumpkin chocolate chip dough log:

Bake your logs in the oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, until they are firm-ish to the touch and look dry on top.  The baking time really depends on your oven, your baking sheets, etc.  Here are my baked biscotti logs:

See, they barely fit on the one baking sheet! Anyway, they aren't quite done here (I was using a lower temp oven and it wasn't cutting it, probably because of the pumpkin, which is why I recommend you use a 350 degree oven for the whole time), you can see they are still a little wet in the cracks, so I had put them back in the oven for a few minutes. 

Carefully transfer them (I use two large spatulas to pick the log up) to a cooling rack and let them cool for about 15 minutes.  

 You can see they look cooked enough here.

Then carefully transfer them to a cutting board (not the one you use for onion and garlic!) and slice them carefully across the width into biscotti!  Put cookies cut side down (they will be laying on their "sides") onto your baking sheet and bake 10 to 15 minutes until lightly browned on the bottom.  Take them out and flip them onto the other side and bake about 10 more minutes.  Let cookies cool on your rack and enjoy! They keep well packed in an airtight container for a few days, or wrap tightly in foil and freeze them if you made too many :-) 

We already ate half of them! Enjoy!