These Vegan Cranberry and Pistachio Biscotti are a fantastic way of making a classic Italian biscuit full of festive flavours. Get the recipe below.
Christmas biscuits
All around the world you will find biscuits served up at Christmas; biscuits like lebkuchen, vanillekipferl and linzer cookies. Even shortbread is often enjoyed during the festive season.
Although Biscotti are enjoyed all year round they are a great carrier of different flavours and you can easily take the basic recipe and make them have the taste of Christmas.
These biscotti are flavoured with cranberries and pistachios. Cranberries are so synonymous with Christmas that these biscotti immediately feel festive. The green pistachios contrast really well with the red of the cranberries making the biscuits look as festive as they taste.
How to make vegan biscotti
Making these biscotti vegan is super simple. Normally biscotti is made using egg, but in this recipe we use a mix of soy milk and vegetable oil. Together they are rich enough to mimic the egg and they bring the dough together perfectly.
And that's it. There are no other substitutes to be made!
To find out more about substituting eggs, butter, milk and more in order to make a recipe suitable for vegans, check out my big vegan baking guide.
Top tips for making my Cranberry and Pistachio Biscotti
Making these twice baked biscuits doesn't have to be difficult. My tops tips are as follows:
- Make sure you weigh out your ingredients precisely as a small mistake can have a big impact on the recipe
- Kneading the dough is really important to the final texture of your biscuits. Make sure you keep kneading until its smooth.
- The shape of your dough log will depend on the shape of your biscotti. You can make it flatter for a longer biscuit though remember they will rise slightly in the oven. A good guide is to make them the shape of a ciabatta loaf.
- Don't be tempted to try and cut your biscotti while the loaf is still warm. If you do the loaf will crumble and your biscuits will break up. Leave it to cool for at least 20 minutes before you attempt to move on to the next stage.
- Use a sharp serrated knife to cut your biscuits. You will need it to be very sharp to cut through the whole nuts.
Try these tips and let me know how you get on in the comments below.
The recipe
Vegan Cranberry and Pistachio Biscotti
Ingredients
- 275 g plain flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 125 g caster sugar
- 50 g dried cranberries
- 50 g pistachios
- 100 g soy milk
- 50 g vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 100 g dark chocolate
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 180C / 356F / gas mark 4.
- Sift the flour into a bowl along with the baking powder, caster sugar and orange zest.
- Toss the cranberries and pistachios in the flour and sugar to coat.
- In a jug whisk together the soy milk, vegetable oil and almond essence.
- Pour the soy milk, vegetable oil and almond essence over the other ingredients and mix together until a dough begins to form.
- Lightly flour your work surface and tip the dough out.
- Begin kneading the dough until it is a smooth ball.
- Shape the dough into a log roughly shaped like a ciabatta loaf.
- Place the dough on to a lined baking try and bake in the centre of the oven for 25 – 30 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and leave to cool for at least 20 minutes.
- Using a serrated knife, cut into slices on the diagonal.
- Place the slices back on to the baking tray and bake for another 10 – 15 minutes or until crisp and golden.
- Leave to cool on a cooling rack.
- Once the biscotti have cooled, melt the dark chocolate.
- Once melted take each biscotti and dip the end into the dark chocolate.
- Place back on to the cooling rack letting any excess drip off.
- Once the chocolate has set, enjoy!
Nutrition
More biscuits and cookies
These Christmas biscuits and cookies will bring some festive cheer. Best of all, they can all be made vegan.
More Christmas recipes
Enjoy recipes from starters to the main course, puddings cocktails and more, for the whole of the festive period. Just check out my Christmas recipe archive.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Julie says
Your ingredients list doesn’t have how much almond essence or orange zest use
Emma says
Apologies. I will get this updated. Use the zest of 1 orange and just a few drops of almond essence or the almond flavour will over power. Hope that helps.
Julie says
Thank you, Emma!! I'm about to make these right now, I'll let you know how they come out