The Best Gingerbread Biscotti

The perfect Holiday Season combining to great cookies in one. Gingerbread Biscotti has the signature crunch of traditional Italian Biscotti with all the warming festive spices flavour of Gingerbread Cookies. They're simple to make, and they last for weeks - perfect for your cookie box this year.

December equals baking all things with ginger and spice. That warming flavour at first bite and smell from the oven is so nostalgic! My Gingerbread Cake Roll, Gingersnap Cookies and Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies are firm favourites.

Over the past couple of years, my love affair with biscotti has grown. Once you know How To Make Classic Biscotti, you'll realise how easy it is to make and customise with different flavour variations.

It makes total sense to combine my love of biscotti and ginger. The Gingerbread Biscotti are twice baked, so you get that crumbly, crunchy texture, but when you close your eyes, they taste and smell exactly like a gingerbread cookie! Heaven!

🧾 Ingredients Needed

The ingredients needed for these Gingerbread Biscotti Cookies may feel on the longer side, but that's down to all the extra spices we put in. And this all layers on the flavour creating a deep and rich-tasting biscotti cookie. Well worth it!

No more buying your biscotti from Starbucks, no no - make your own perfection!

• Brown sugar - Light or brown sugar can be used. With molasses in the sugar, it adds to the depth of flavour alongside the extra molasses we add-in.
• Orange zest - This is an optional extra if you have an orange lying around. I love the subtle zesty citrus alongside the spices.
• Dark Unsulphered Molasses is what I would go for. In the UK, Lyle's Black Treacle is our equivalent. Grandma's Molasses is a popular brand in the States.
• White chocolate - I like to decorate the biscotti by dipping them into white chocolate, but if you like, you could add the chopped white chocolate into the cookie dough.

👩🏻‍🍳 How to Make

Making Gingerbread Biscotti couldn't be any easier. It's the wet ingredients added to the dry ingredients. In one bowl. With no special equipment. It's so refreshing to make such a tasty recipe that's so simple.

The method may seem a little complicated, but all we do is shape the biscotti into two logs and bake it, then slice it and bake it again.

*Be sure to see the recipe card below for the full ingredients list & instructions!*

Make Gingerbread Dough

STEP 1. Rub the orange zest into the sugar. Add the zest to the sugar and use your fingertips to rub it together. This releases the orange oils from the zest and maximises the flavour from the zest (Image 1).

STEP 2. Add dry, then wet ingredients and mix. Add the orange sugar, flour, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and salt into a bowl and stir (Image 2). Make a well and add the lightly beaten eggs, melted butter and molasses (Image 3).

Use a rubber spatula or wooden spoon to stir the ingredients together until the molasses is evenly distributed and a rough dough forms (Image 4).

STEP 3. Form mix into dough and chill. When thoroughly mixed together, squeeze the dough with floured hands and form it into a rough disc (Images 5 & 6)

Wrap the disc well in plastic wrap. Try and shape it into a rectangle - it makes it easier to cut and shape in the next step. Once wrapped, use your hands to smooth the plastic wrap - it helps bring any craggy bits of dough together (Image 7).

Shape and Bake

STEP 4. Split the dough into two and form into logs. Unwrap the dough from the plastic wrap and dust lightly in flour. If you've shaped it into a rectangle, it's easy to split the dough in half. I use a bench scraper to do this, but you could cut it with a knife (Image 8).

Shape into logs. Place the two pieces of dough onto a baking paper-lined tray and use floured hands to shape the logs. I decided to make mine quite small today so made extra long logs at about 40cm/16 inches long x 5 cm/2 inches wide (Images 9 & 10). Make the logs wider for larger gingerbread biscotti.

Leave space between the logs, as the dough will spread while baking.

Brush egg wash onto the dough. It gives the top of the biscotti a lovely golden, shiny finish (Image 11). At this point, you could sprinkle the outside with coarse sugar or finely chopped nuts.

STEP 5. Bake once. Bake the Gingerbread biscotti for about 20 to 25 minutes. You want it firm and golden (Image 12). Then let the biscotti logs cool for 10 minutes. Reduce the oven heat to 135°C (275°F).

After 10 minutes, using a sharp serrated knife, cut the logs diagonally into 2cm (3⁄4-inch) slices (Image 13). Either place the slices on their sides on the parchment-covered baking tray or stand them up as I have done. Leave a little space between each slice so that the hot air can get in between (Image 14)

STEP 6. Bake again. It's time for a second bake now. They return to the oven for another 20-25 minutes total or until dry and crisp. Turn halfway through the baking time if you laid them down on their side (Image 15). Then cool.

Dip Gingerbread Biscotti in White Chocolate

STEP 7. Melt white chocolate and dip or drizzle white chocolate. Add white chocolate to a microwave-safe bowl and heat in 30-second increments, stirring at each stage until melted. Be careful not to burn the chocolate.

Dip the top of each biscotti in the chocolate and stand them up on the baking tray. If you have any leftover white chocolate, add it to a sandwich bag, snip a small hole and drizzle over the dipped chocolate. It looks so pretty! (Images 16 & 17)