Cranberry Cornmeal Biscotti

I make holiday cookies for a very small handful of people. I don't have a great system down that has me making dough in October, freezing it until November, baking and freezing the cookies before Thanksgiving and then plating them in December. Someone, somewhere on the blogs does something like that. It sounds like a great plan, but I'm just not interested in making shit-tons of cookies, or spending months doing it. Also, I would eat them all. So, the week before Christmas, it is a frenzy of baking around here. I'd like to be one of those people who has plates of cookies for the neighbors, or even my good friends. No. I just make a few kinds and give them to my mom's 4 best friends. All women who have been so good to me throughout my life. I usually do a little something knitted or crafted for them too. You can see that part of the gift over here.
Anywhoo, since I was off gallivanting in the North Cascades last weekend and have been nursing a very sore back from the fender bender last week, well, I've only made one kind and they are slowly being eaten.
I found this recipe in Moosewood Restaurant Celebrates. I like the slightly nutty crunch of the cornmeal and that they are sweet, but not so sweet that I couldn't eat a dozen of them for breakfast. Not that I've done that. . . yet. Don't be put off by having to bake them twice. That effort is easily made up for by how quickly the rest of it comes together. I might dip these in chocolate when I do my chocolate dipped pretzels later in the week.

Cranberry Cornmeal Biscotti
(notes by me in parenthesis)

1/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup fresh cranberries, coarsely chopped (a food processor does this quickly and easily)
2 cups unbleached white flour
1/2 cup cornmeal (I use stone-ground cornmeal not the really gritty stuff in the box)
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly oil a baking sheet.

In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer or a wire whisk. Add the eggs one at a time, beating between each addition. Fold in the cranberries and set aside.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. Fold the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture. Dust your hands lightly with flour and shape the dough into a ball. (Don't skip the flour on the hands, the dough is very sticky).

Use a spatula and your floured hands to scoop the dough onto the oiled baking sheet. Form the dough into a 12x3 inch-diameter log shape; then press down on the log, flattening it to a thickness of about an inch. The length and width of the flattened log should be about 14x4 inches. (try and make it rectangular and evenly thick, that way you don't have whimpy edge biscotti or raw middle pieces).

Bake on the top shelf of the oven for 25-30 minutes, until the dough is firm and just slightly brown. Remove from the oven and transfer the log to a cutting board. When cool enough to handle, slice crosswise into 3/4 inch pieces (using a bread knife makes this easier and less messy). Lay each biscotti cut side down on the baking sheet. Bake for about 5 minutes on each side, using tongs to gently flip them. (If you like your biscotti hard, bake a little longer, otherwise, they end up a little chewy and soft, but in a good way. Just make sure they don't burn.) Cool on a rack.

When completely cooled, store in an airtight container. Biscotti will easily keep for a couple of weeks.
Makes 14 biscotti.