Almond Chocolate Chip Biscotti

This is a recipe I kind of tweaked from America's Test Kitchen cookbook (seriously a good buy if you're looking for an awesome cookbook). As far as I'm concerned, using the orange zest in this recipe is a must. If you don't have any oranges, then forget about making these biscotti.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
• 3/4 cup toasted or roasted almonds, coarsely chopped
• 2 tablespoons grated orange zest
• 2 to 3 oz semisweet chocolate baking squares, chopped
• parchment paper
  

     Heat oven to 350 degrees and make sure your oven rack is in the middle position. Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together; set aside. Using an electric mixer, beat the sugar and butter together in a bowl on medium speed until light and fluffy. Be patient, this might take 4 minutes or so. Under-creamed butter is still grainy and not at all fluffy.
After the butter and sugar are creamed, add the eggs one at a time and beat until incorporated. Then add the two extracts and the orange zest. [Scrape the sides of the bowl as needed].
     Using the lowest mixer speed, add the flour a little at a time, but don't overmix the dough. Fold the chopped almonds and chocolate into the dough.
The dough will be pretty sticky, which is why you need some flour on your hands for shaping the dough. Split the dough in half and shape each half (with floured hands) into a 3" by 10" loaf directly on the parchment paper-lined cookie sheet. Keep the loaves about 3 inches apart from each other. Bake for 30-35 minutes until the loaves are golden, then remove them from the oven and cool for 10 minutes.
     Using a very sharp or serrated knife, cut the loaves on a diagonal into slices (no more than an inch wide, 3/4" is probably best). Put the slices back on the cookie sheet, laying them on their sides. Bake at 325 degrees another 10 to 15 minutes. You can choose to flip the slices over halfway, but I didn't bother.
     These take about 30 minutes to cool after they're baked a second time--see if you can wait that long though. . .!