You must make this nut-free cherry orange biscotti recipe. You will love these Italian biscuits with a bright citrus zest, dried cherries, with a crisp golden crunch. This recipe is inspired by my childhood visits to San Francisco’s Italian bakeries.
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I Love Italian Bakeries
One of my earliest memories of living in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood were our daily walks to Chinatown. Sometimes we stopped at an Italian bakery on our way home for different treats. The Italian bakeries always smelled so good, were always busy, which gave me time to look at the beautiful display of Italian desserts.
However, stopping by at an Italian bakery is not the casual everyday kind of experience for people with a nut or other common food allergies. I learned how to make nut-free biscotti for my family over the years, they’re so delicious to eat and easy to make.
What are Biscotti?
Biscotti is a type of Italian biscuit that is baked as a long, flat, rectangular shaped log. Cool the baked logs, slice, and bake again to make long oblong-shaped biscuits that are golden-brown and crunchy.
I adapted King Arthur Flour’s recipe for vanilla biscotti and learned that American-style biscotti recipes tend to add between 2 to 6 tablespoons of butter per recipe for a softer biscuit. Cantucci, a traditional Italian biscotti, does not use butter and is made with flour, sugar, eggs, and other ingredients.
Many bakery or packaged biscotti biscuits are typically made with almonds or other tree nuts, such as hazelnuts and pistachios. They might also be flavored with almond extract. It’s simple to leave out the nuts and substitute with seeds and/or dried fruit.
Important Food Allergy Lesson
Whenever I made a nut-free version of a recipe which typically has nuts, such as carrot cake or Pad Thai, I remind my sons that I’m making a nut-free version of something that typically contains peanuts or tree nuts. This helps them to be cautious around carrot cake with nuts or Pad Thai with peanuts.
If you are making my nut-free biscotti recipe for or with a child with food allergies, use this experience as a teaching moment. Show your children packages and pictures of biscotti with nuts and help them to recognize biscotti as something to avoid unless they are specifically made nut-free with safe ingredients and with precautions to prevent cross-contact.
Nut-Free Ingredient Substitutions
The obvious way to make nut-free biscotti is simply leave the nuts out. Can we replace the flavor and nutrition with nut-free ingredient substitutions when we leave out the nuts and almond extract?
What extract to use instead of almond extract?
My favorite nut-free hack is to substitute almond extract with double the amount of vanilla extract or vanilla paste. If a recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of almond extract, then use 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract instead.
It might be ok to use almond extract, but that requires careful checking and you can read more about almond extracts in my post about Almond Tofu. However, I still don’t use almond extract because I don’t want to my sons to associate the flavor and smell of almond as a safe and familiar food in case they are served other foods made with almond extract made with sweet almonds.
Since these biscotti biscuits also include orange zest and I enhance the orange flavor with an extract. I add Rodelle’s Fiori di Sicilia, which translates to flowers of Sicily in Italian, is an orange blossom extract, with “bright citrus, lush vanilla and flower essences.” The cookies smell and taste amazing and the fiori di Sicilia extract enhances the citrus flavor of the biscotti. If you don’t have this extract on hand, then swap with vanilla extract (3 teaspoons or 1 tablespoon, total).
What to add to biscotti instead of almonds?
While it’s easy to omit almonds from biscotti, we might be missing out on the protein, fiber, and fat health benefits of almonds to the recipe.
Consider substituting almonds with nut-free seeds. If not allergic to seeds, try roasted pumpkin seeds. If you combine dried cherries with pumpkin seeds, your biscotti will have a festive appearance for the holidays. The biscotti with red dried cherries will also make lovely Valentine’s Day treats as well as for Lunar New Year.
I love dried cherries and thought it would be great in biscotti. The first time I tried using dried cherries, I thought the dried cherry pieces might be too big for biscotti, so I rough chopped them before adding to the dough.
The next time I made the recipe, I just tossed the dried cherries into the dough. I loved the texture and flavor of big pieces of dried cherry. Save your time and effort, don’t chop the dried cherries.
Some dried fruits might have potential peanut or tree-nut allergen cross-contact, I recommend checking with the manufacturer or reading the package labels.
Biscotti Making Tips
Make the most of zesting an orange: Use a fine grater to zest an orange over the bowl of dry ingredients to catch the orange oil. I do this for every recipe that involves zesting citrus, it makes a huge difference in flavor.
Loosen up the clumps of dried cherries: Sometimes the dried cherries might stick together in large clumps, break them up before adding to the dough.
Shaping sticky dough: When shaping the dough into a log, it’s fine if the dough is a little bit sticky but the dough is easier to handle by splashing some water sparingly on your silicone spatula and/or dough scraper while shaping the dough.
Energy saving tip: When the logs are done with the first bake, you can save energy by turning off the oven but keep the door closed. Or you can simply lower the temperature while waiting for the baked logs are cooling.
If you like big biscotti, cut the baked logs diagonally. The ends will be small, enjoy them as a snack. And you will end up with fewer biscottis if you cut them diagonally.
Allergy Aware Biscotti
This biscotti recipe is free of peanuts, tree nuts, soy, fish, shellfish, and sesame as written.
If dairy-free, I like to use Earth Balance’s buttery sticks. Check the ingredient labels for your other allergens because they have a soy-free option as well as an option that uses soy. Otherwise, I have had tried making chocolate chip cookies with olive oil, which might also work for biscotti. Or look for traditional Italian recipes for cantucci.
It might also be easy to make this recipe egg-free by using the oil, baking powder, and water substitute that I also use in my recipe for egg-free snickerdoodles. I would also consider using chia seeds or ground flax combined with water as an egg substitute.
Orange Cherry Biscotti Recipe, Nut-Free
Equipment
- 1 electric mixer
- 1 cookie baking sheet
Ingredients
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon Fiori di Sicilia (orange blossom extract)
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon orange zest from 1 orange
- 3/4 cup dried cherries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F and check that the oven rack is in the middle. Line a cookie baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone liner, set aside.
- Cut 5 tablespoons butter into cubes and place the cubed butter in a large mixing bowl. Add 2/3 cup sugar to the bowl. Use an electric mixer to cream the butter and sugar for about 5 minutes until combined. Add 1 egg and mix. Add the second egg, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, and 1 teaspoon fiori di Sicilia and mix.
- In a medium sized bowl, add 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/8 teaspoon salt and combine with a fork. Use a fine grater and zest an orange over the dry ingredients, combine with a fork. Reserve the rest of the orange for other purposes.
- Add about half of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix for 30 seconds. Add the remaining flour to the dough and mix until 50% combined. Scatter the dried cherries over the dough and use a sturdy spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl and mix until combined.
- Divide the dough in half and transfer half to the parchment lined baking sheet. Use the spatula and/or a dough scraper to shape the dough into a 2 x 12 x 1/2 inch rectangular log, leave room for a second log. Transfer the remaining dough to the baking sheet and shape it in the same way.
- Check that the ends of the log are even with the rest of the log and not rounded, otherwise the end slices will be smaller than the rest. Also check that the top surface of the logs are even and smooth. The logs will expand slightly, check the placement of the logs are not too close to the edges of the baking sheet or each other.
First Bake
- Place the baking sheet on the middle oven rack and bake for 25 minutes. Take the baked logs out of the oven and allow them to cool on the baking sheet for 20-30 minutes. Turn off the oven and keep the door closed while the baked logs cool.
Second Bake (note lower oven temperature)
- Turn the oven back on and set the temperature to 325°F. When the baked logs are warm but cool enough to handle, transfer them to a cutting surface and use a serrated knife to cut each log into 12* slices.
- Place the biscotti back on the baking sheet, and spread the biscotti out without touching, and bake for 15-20 minutes, until the cut edges are a light golden brown.
- Transfer the biscotti to a cooling rack until cooled to room temperature. Store in an airtight container.
Notes
Nutrition
Related Posts
If you are looking for more nut-free cookie recipes, then please enjoy these recipes.
$250 Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe, Nut-Free & Egg-Free
Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies, Nut-free & Dairy-free
Baking with Children: Chocolate Crinkle Cookies Recipe
Delicious Lemon Vanilla Crinkle Cookies Recipe That is Nut-Free & Egg-Free
Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies & Friendships
Thumbprint Cookies, a Nut-Free, Egg-Free Recipe
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Thank you for posting this. I can’t wait to try this recipe. I am paranoid about the dried cherries and possible cross contamination with nuts. I may use my food dehydrator to see if I can dehydrate them myself.
Also do y think this recipe will work with fresh cranberries? Does the fruit have to be freeze-dried or dehydrated?
I worry about nut allergen cross-contact with dried fruit as well and understand your concern. You can try buying dried fruit from Gerbs, they’re top 9 (maybe more) allergen free. Trader Joe’s has dried cherries and dried cranberries that work for us but it’s been awhile since I’ve called. I would recommend dehydrated fruit for this recipe. Fresh cranberries (or fresh cherries) might be better in a muffin, like this recipe https://nutfreewok.com/cranberry-orange-muffins/