Walnut & Cinnamon Biscotti
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These walnut and cinnamon biscotti are a perfect holiday treat—great for gifting, since they keep for up to a month, and wonderful with coffee, tea, or ice cream!
Many years ago, my Aunt Sharon gave me a lovely little cookbook that I’ve returned to time and again: Biscotti: Recipes from the Kitchen of the American Academy in Rome by Mona Talbott and Mirealla Misenti. It’s filled with delicious cookie recipes and charming stories that make you want to drop everything, fly to Rome, and bake in the Academy’s kitchen.
These biscotti were inspired by one of the book’s recipes, Cantucci di Noce e Cannella (Walnut and Cinnamon Cookies). They’re the perfect holiday treat, especially for gifting, as they keep for up to a month. Plus, they pair wonderfully with coffee, tea, or vanilla ice cream.
What You’ll Need To Make Walnut & Cinnamon Biscotti
- All-purpose flour: Forms the structure of the biscotti. To ensure accuracy, use the spoon-and-level method to measure.
- Cornmeal: Adds a slight crunch and unique texture to the biscotti.
- Baking powder: Helps the dough rise.
- Salt: Enhances flavor and balances the sweetness.
- Black pepper: Adds a subtle, unexpected warmth.
- Ground cinnamon: Infuses the biscotti with warm, holiday flavor.
- Unsalted butter: Creates a crisp-tender texture and rich flavor.
- Sugar: Sweetens the biscotti.
- Egg: Binds the ingredients and adds structure.
- Vanilla extract: Adds a warm, sweet aroma and rounds out the flavor.
- Walnuts: Add crunch and nutty flavor to every bite.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
Step-by-Step Instructions
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, pepper and cinnamon.
Whisk to combine.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
Beat in the egg and vanilla.
Add the flour mixture and walnuts.
Mix on low speed until just combined.
Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and divide it in two. Directly on the lined baking sheet, form each portion into logs about 1½ inches wide and ¾-inch tall. Leave about 4 inches of space between the logs to allow the dough to spread.
Bake for 20 minutes, then remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes.
Once cool, transfer the cookie logs to a cutting board. Using a serrated knife and a sawing motion, cut the logs diagonally into generous ½-inch slices. (They will look a little undercooked in the middle.)
Arrange the cookies, cut side down, back on the lined baking sheet; return to the oven and cook for 5 to 7 minutes, until lightly golden on the underside. Remove the biscotti from the oven and flip over; cook 5 to 7 minutes more, until lightly golden all over.
Let cool on the baking sheet completely before serving. The biscotti will keep in an airtight container for up to a month; freeze for longer storage.
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Walnut & Cinnamon Biscotti
These walnut and cinnamon biscotti are a perfect holiday treat—great for gifting, since they keep for up to a month, and wonderful with coffee, tea, or ice cream!
Ingredients
- 1¼ cups all purpose flour, spooned into a measuring cup and leveled-off
- 2 tablespoons cornmeal
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- ⅔ cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup (4 oz) walnuts, coarsely chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, pepper and cinnamon.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until well incorporated. Add the flour mixture and walnuts and mix on low speed until just combined. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
- Remove the dough from the refrigerator and divide it in two. Directly on the lined baking sheet, form each portion into logs about 1½ inches wide and ¾-inch tall. (If the dough is sticky, dust your hands with flour.) Leave about 4 inches of space between the logs to allow the dough to spread. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes. Once cool, transfer the cookie logs to a cutting board. Using a serrated knife and a sawing motion, cut the logs diagonally into generous ½-inch slices. (They will look a little undercooked in the middle.) Arrange the cookies, cut side down, back on the lined baking sheet; return to the oven and cook for 5 to 7 minutes, until lightly golden on the underside. Remove the biscotti from the oven and flip over; cook 5 to 7 minutes more, until lightly golden all over. Let cool on the baking sheet completely before serving.
- The cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to a month.
- Freezer-Friendly Instructions: To freeze the dough: Shape into logs, wrap each securely in plastic wrap, and place them in a sealable bag. When ready to bake, remove the logs from the freezer, thaw the dough until pliable, and then proceed with recipe. To freeze after baking: After the cookies are completely cooled, double-wrap them securely with aluminum foil or plastic freezer wrap. Thaw overnight on the countertop before serving.
Nutrition Information
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- Per serving (32 servings)
- Serving size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 77
- Fat: 4g
- Saturated fat: 1g
- Carbohydrates: 9g
- Sugar: 4g
- Fiber: 0g
- Protein: 1g
- Sodium: 45mg
- Cholesterol: 10mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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Hello,
This is the very first time I have been disappointed with a recipe from Once Upon A Chef and don’t know what I did incorrectly,
I made the Cinnamon Walnut Biscotti. I have made all the other biscotti recipes with no problem. First of all, the dough barely spread while baking, and I only got 21 biscotti. Help! What did I do wrong? My husband and I love cinnamon and walnuts, and biscotti, so disappointed.
Debbie Glaser ( a long time user of your site and love it. Making your French Lentil soup right now)
Hi Deborah, Sorry to hear you had a problem with this! Is there any chance you made a measuring error? That would be my guess, particularly if you’ve made my other biscotti recipes with no issues.
I’m in the middle of baking this and while slicing the logs, the biscotti was very crumbly and started breaking. This seemed to be made worse by the sawing motion =( Put them in the oven for 6 mins, took them out for the flip, and still on the verge of breaking in half…. Now just waiting for the final bake to be done but Jenn what do you think I could have done wrong? I followed the recipe and ingredients as written and to the best of my abilities..
The dough and baked outcome actually looks like your Mandel bread…
Sorry you had a problem with these! Did you let the biscotti cool for 10 minutes before slicing them? That timing is really the sweet spot to slice them without crumbling them.
Hi Jenn! I did but they were still warm to the touch – is that right? Or should they feel cool?
Ultimately though, I just let them bake for a little longer, and they turned out okay 🙂 They weren’t ridiculously hard like typical biscotti, but still nice and crunchy. And they smell divine!
It makes sense that they were still a bit warm to the touch. I’m glad that ultimately, they came out nicely. 🙂
Can I use salted butter and just reduce the salt a little?
Sure — While it varies by brand, most salted butter has approximately 1/4 tsp. salt per stick, so you can use the salted butter and reduce the salt in the recipe as needed. Hope that helps!
Great Recipe! Simple and so flavorful. A family favorite!
Amazing! Your biscotti recipes are perfect.
Loved this recipe! My Aunt used to make these special for me. She passed away earlier this year and we couldn’t find her recipe. I found this one, made them last weekend and really loved them. In fact, if I keep sneaking them, we won’t have any left for Christmas Eve!
Great recipe! I might be tempted to reduce the sugar a bit as I find them a little sweet. And I will definitely double the recipe when I make them again as these biscotti are smaller than the chocolate biscotti in your other recipe. But overall – a really nice biscotti.
Made these biscotti tonight and they were absolutely scrumptious!! Reminded me of the ones we had in Italy just recently! Jen- if I were to make a pistachio biscotti, how would you change this recipe? I want to try all sorts of flavours now! Thanks for always making my belly happy!
So glad you liked them, Shazeen! I think you could just replace the walnuts with pistachios. You might also add a bit of orange zest, if you like that flavor combination. Also, have you tried the almond biscotti from my cookbook? They are my very favorite.
I am thinking about making these for Thanksgiving and I wanted to find out if it is possible to omit the walnuts? Love all your recipes. Thank you
Sure – hope you enjoy!
Hi,
I have made a ton of recipes from your site and they all turn out beautifully.
However, I made these tonight and the texture of the dough didn’t seem right. It was so crumbly/difficult to work with…They’re in the oven now, hopefully they still turn out!
Could it be because the butter was too cold? I took it out of the freezer and was a bit impatient, so it probably wasn’t “softened”.
thanks 🙂
Hi Chloe, Yes, I suspect it was because the butter was too cold. If you’d like to soften butter more quickly, you can cut the stick into a few chunks and microwave it on very low power until it softens a bit.