These mint chip biscotti make a great light breakfast, afternoon snack, or any time snack, really. Pair a steaming hot cup of coffee with a couple homemade crunchy biscotti cookies, lightly flavored with mint extract and studded with chocolate chips and nuts, and you’ll forget you’re in your own kitchen instead of a trendy coffee shop.
Line a half-sheet pan or large cookie sheet with parchment or a silicone baking mat. You can use butter or baking spray if you don't have those to keep your cookies from sticking during the first bake.
In a medium-large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt, almonds, chocolate chips, and chopped mint leaves.
Using a fine mesh sieve or sifter to remove any lumps, add the baking powder to the bowl. Stir or whisk to combine all ingredients well.
Break the eggs into a small bowl or large glass measuring cup, and stir them with a fork or whisk along with the mint, vanilla (and almond extract, if you're using it) and beat until the whites and yolks are combined.
If you are tinting your dough, make the egg mixture a much brighter green than you want the dough to be, as the flour and other ingredients will absorb and mute the vibrancy of the color.
Add the flavored & tinted egg mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well.
Continue to fold and mix this together with a sturdy silicone spatula, a bowl scraper, or your hands, until it makes a stiff but sticky dough. It will be crumbly at first, then feel too wet. This is normal!
Shape and Bake the Cookies
Divide the dough in half, and shape each half into a flat oblong rectangle on the baking pan. Each should be about 4-5" wide and 10-12" long, and from ½"-1" thick... the shape of your loaf will determine the length and thickness of your biscotti, but they will rise and spread a bit when they bake.
Bake the loaves for 15-20 minutes. They should be firm but not completely dry, and just starting to color.
Remove from the oven, and as soon as they are cool enough to handle, let cool on a wire rack for 20-30 minutes. If you are making a double batch or multiple kinds of biscotti, you can bake the second batch while the first is cooling.
Slice the cookie loaves across the short length into ½"-1" thick biscotti (about a dozen slices per loaf).
Thicker biscotti will take longer to bake but you can make them how you like them- just adjust the baking time as needed to dry them out completely. You may want to reduce the oven temperature slightly as well.
Lay the slices flat on your cookie sheets and bake them again for another 10-15 minutes or until they are dry and crunchy. They will get crunchier as they cool, but make sure they're completely dry. You can leave them in the oven with the door cracked to cool to make sure (just check to make sure they aren't still baking).
Store in an airtight container once they are fully cooled. If properly stored and baked until completely dry, these last for a month or more.
Notes
If they are not completely dry and crunchy once they cool after the second baking, you can bake them again. Removing all the moisture is key to the long shelf life of these cookies!
If you made thicker slices, you may need to bake them longer to get them fully dry in the second bake. Lower the oven temperature if they begin to brown before drying out. Nutritional information is an estimate for a yield of two dozen cookies, and will vary for different sizes of cookie slices, or if ingredients are substituted or changed.