The annual March Zinfandel Festival in Paso Robles finds Fratelli Perata serving our new Zinfandel with warm cranberry-almond biscotti. While the wine is certainly vintage Fratelli Perata with ripe fruit and black pepper, bramble flavors, the biscotti are a new generation favorite. This recipe features dried cranberry for a crisp berry flavor, and almonds that complement ripe Zinfandel fruit. Not baked to a rock-hard finish, these biscotti are terrific for all ages.

2 1/4 cups flour (280g)
1 cup sugar (300g)
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
3 eggs (2 1/2 if extra large)
1 TB vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. almond extract (or up to 1 tsp. to taste)
3/4 cup chopped almonds (175g)
1 1/4 cup dried cranberries (150g)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Farenheit.

In a medium bowl, mix the dry ingredients.  In the bowl of a mixer, whisk the eggs and extracts. Add the dry ingredients to the eggs and mix with mixer until just combined. Add nuts and cranberries and mix until incorporated.

Note: the size of the eggs makes a big difference. The dough needs to be relatively stiff to work.  Add some more flour if needed.  If you need a lot more flour, add some sugar as well). More about eggs: Eggs are sized by the dozen, 27 oz for Extra Large, 24 oz. for Large. In the end, if weighing everything very precisely we've found that 5 66gram eggs works very well in a double batch.

On a well floured baking sheet make the dough into 2 logs about 14" long and 1 1/2" wide each. (Note that the baking sheet doesn't really need oil if the logs get enough flour.)

Bake the logs at 325 degrees Farenheit for 30 min. 

Remove from the oven and cut the logs into1/2" pieces. Reduce oven heat to 300 degrees Farenheit. Stand the pieces on end on the baking sheet and bake at 300 degrees for 16 1/2 minutes.

Preparation hints:  Dough can be refrigerated or frozen, in fact when brought back to a workable temperature, its actually easier to deal with; before it gets too warm and sticky.  You can flour the bottom of the "log" more effectively.  If the log sticks after the first baking, just let it cool a bit and carefully pry up with a spatula. A "bakers bench knife" is useful for cutting the cookies. For big batches, a large, powerful 5qt. stand mixer can do a double batch. Each log comes out to be about 500 grams.

Variation: substitute blueberries for the cranberries. Be careful about blending it in, though. Done wrong, it ends up looking kinda gray (but still tastes great).