Walnut & Cinnamon Biscotti
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These biscotti, flavored with walnuts and cinnamon, are a nice holiday cookie and are wonderful with coffee or tea.
Many years ago, my Aunt Sharon gave me a lovely little cookbook that I have used time and again called Biscotti: Recipes from the Kitchen of the American Academy in Rome by Mona Talbott and Mirealla Misenti. It is full of delicious cookie recipes and stories that make you want to drop everything, fly to Rome and get a job baking in the American Academy kitchen.
These biscotti were inspired by one of the recipes in the book called Cantucci di Noce e Cannella (or Walnut & Cinnamon cookies). It’s a nice holiday cookie, especially for gifting, because it keeps for up to a month — and it’s wonderful with coffee, tea, fruit salads, or desserts like my Baked Pears in Spiced Pomegranate Syrup.
These cookies have a few unusual ingredients, like black pepper and cornmeal. The black pepper doesn’t make the cookies peppery like you might think; it just adds a little background warmth. The cornmeal is used sparingly and adds nice texture.
What you’ll need to make Walnut and Cinnamon Biscotti
How to make Walnut and Cinnamon Biscotti
Begin by combining the flour, cornmeal, salt, pepper, black pepper, baking powder, and cinnamon.
Next, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the egg.
Beat until combined, then mix in the vanilla.
Add the flour mixture and walnuts and mix on low speed until just combined.
Chill the dough for fifteen minutes, then form the dough into logs on a lined baking sheet.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Let cool for ten minutes, then transfer the logs to a cutting board and slice diagonally into 1/2-inch pieces.
Place the biscotti back on the lined baking sheet and bake for 10-14 minutes more, flipping once.
You may also like
- Double Chocolate Biscotti
- Almond Biscotti
- Grandma Annie’s Chocolate Chip Mandel Bread
- Snickerdoodles
- Crave-Worthy Sugar Cookies
Walnut & Cinnamon Biscotti
These biscotti, flavored with walnuts and cinnamon, are a nice holiday cookie and are wonderful with coffee or tea.
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 beat until well incorporated. Mix in the vanilla. 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 5-7 minutes, until lightly golden on the underside. Remove the biscotti from the oven and flip over; cook 5-7 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: The dough can be frozen for up to 3 months: Shape the dough 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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Comments
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I added a half teaspoon of green cardamom and used ceylon cinnamon. The spices married incredibly well!
I baked them a little too long, but for my first time baking biscotti, I am pretty happy with the results! Definitely looking forward to having these with my coffee in the morning!
Hi Jenn
I noticed all your biscotti recipes contain butter. Traditionally , I don’t think biscotti includes any fat but they are very dry hard. I might try your recipe except for the fact that it’s healthier without the butter. But I’m sure it’s way more tender and tasty
Thank you, Jenn! Delicious and so easy to make!!! I can’t wait to make the Vanilla ones!
If these are holiday cookies then every day should be a holiday. Awesome cinnamon flavor and since they have walnuts, my wife and I agreed that these qualify as a health food.
Followed your recipe to the letter and was rewarded by a great tasting, crunchy cookie.
You’re 2 for 2 as I made the double chocolate biscotti last week, which was also a home run. I’ll have to see what other biscotti recipes you have for this coming weekend.
Thank you for sharing these incredible recipes.
These are delicious! I made them for a friend who is gluten free and dairy free, so I substituted vegetable shortening for the butter and used Krusteaz GF flour. They turned out amazing! I can’t wait to make “regular” ones for the the next lunch. The addition of pepper added a nice little “something” to them. Thank you for the wonderful recipe:)
Fantastic recipe, thank you! The polenta gives such a delicious bite and the flavour is wonderful. A big hit! I’ll be making these again 😋
Hi! I am trying this recipe for the first time. I have added the cup of walnuts. Do you think it’s okay to also add white chocolate chips or will the dough not hold all of it together?
Hi Laura, adding chocolate chips should be fine. Please LMK how they turn out!
These just finished cooling off. First bite could not taste the cinnamon at all. I’m going to try again in a few days and up the cinnamon and add ground cloves in hopes of replicating my Grandmothers Greek Paximathia. Still a five star recipe. We’ll enjoy them with our morning coffee.
Hi Jenn,
Question about the cornmeal. In the recipe you had finely ground cornmeal but you show a picture of regular. Does it matter which one? Indian head brand doesn’t specify but there is a fine ground one in a different brand. Which one should I use? Thanks and love all your recipes no one else compares IMO!
Hi Abbie, So glad you like the recipes! I’m sorry about any confusion regarding this one. Any cornmeal will work here. I just removed the word “fine” from the ingredient list in the recipe. Hope that clarifies and that you enjoy the biscotti!
With the cinnamon and walnuts these sound close to the Greek version my Grandmother would make. They are terrific with your morning coffee.
Hi Jenn, I hope you don’t mind my asking here about your coconut biscotti recipe from your OUAC Weeknight/Weekend cookbook. I have a couple bags of sweetened, flaked coconut but no unsweetened coconut as is called for in the recipe. Is there any way I can use the sweetened coconut instead?
We LOVE your new cookbook!
Hi Mary, I don’t mind it at all! Unfortunately, I don’t think sweetened coconut will work here as I’m concerned that it would burn. Sorry! (And so glad you like the new cookbook!!)
Thank you, Jenn. These are insane! I was intrigued by the black pepper, so I made these…and they are unbelievable. I baked them again and gave them out to friends and only told them there was a secret ingredient but not what it was… They all LOVED it. So far every recipe I’ve tried from you has been a real winner (the doughnut muffins are another win!). Keep ’em coming!
Hello Jenn – any chance of adding the metric measurements please – thank you, Claire.
I just added them! 🙂
Another amazing recipe as always! I just baked these this morning and I am enjoying one now with a French Vanilla Nespresso. I feel like I am in Italy again 🙂 Rather than splitting the dough into two logs, I baked one log to get large bakery sized Biscottis. I love the cinnamon and walnut combination. Thank you for sharing, and I am going to get another biscotti now ~.~
Love the cinnamon walnut biscotti so much I bought your cookbook. Such an easy recipe. Going to try your Peruvian chicken this weekend! Thank you for such easy, delicious recipes for busy people!
And thanks to you for your support of the cookbook! 🙂
I tried this yesterday and it turned out really good! My son doesn’t like nuts though. Do you think I could substitute the nuts with dried cranberries? Or would that make it too sweet? Thanks for your recipes! They never fail me and my family. ❤️
Glad you liked them! I think you could get away with dried cranberries here. Please LMK how they turn out this way. 🙂
I’ve made these without nuts and didn’t replace them with anything. Still fantastically delicious!
I wasn’t sure about trying this recipe but I really wanted cinnamon and walnut. I considered adapting one of my favorite recipes but I’m so glad I made this. This is MY NEW FAVORITE! It turned out so good I’m hiding them and not sharing. I just cooked them a little longer for extra crispy..
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.
Hi
This is the second time that i have tried the recipe. The flavor is wonderful. The first time they came out amazing, the second time the taste was the same, however they went in as two logs and came out as pancakes what could I have done wrong?
Thank you
Wendy
Hi Wendy, Is it possible you left out the baking powder?
Hello, I am a huge follower of your blog. Quick question on this recipe. If cornmeal is not available can we skip it or substitute it? what would be the change in the taste?
Hi Mohit, I’m glad you like the blog! Sure, you can just replace the cornmeal with extra flour. The taste will remain the same, but the texture will be slightly different. (The cornmeal adds a slight “graininess” that I like.) I think you’ll still really enjoy them!
I baked some a few days ago and they were very tasty. Definitely will make it again. Your website is the one I turn to when I am looking for baking or cooking ideas. You’re the best. Can hardly wait for your book to publish. It will definitely be added to my other collections. Thank you again for sharing your great recipes.
These were absolutely delicious! I used pecans instead, and they were a hit. I will definitely make them again. And I like that they aren’t overwhelmingly sweet. Thanks!
This recipe for walnut cinnamon biscotti was a treat. it is sweet and crunchy and tastes great with a cup of coffee. I gave a bag full of this biscotti to another teacher and she was excited to have home made biscotti. She told mea few days later She did not share with her family because it Is her special scrumptious treat. Thank you a wonderful easyt to follow recupe.
I just made these and they are absolutely delicious and so easy. This recipe is a keeper and I’m sure I’ll be making these all the time. Thanks Jenn!
A new favorite to go with morning coffee. I’ve shared these with co-worker and he raved about them. I’ve made them twice in less than a week now.
I made a batch of these today. They were so good I made another!
Glad you enjoyed them and thanks for being the first to review!
I can’t wait to try these – the black pepper and corn meal intrigue me. I will add one suggestion though – I alost exclusively bake biscotti in my household over traditional cookies, and for my 2nd baking, I just slice the cooled log and spread out the log so the biscotti pieces are standing up – if you bake on convection, this eliminates the flipping step during round two!
Hi Jen. This recipe looks delicious and I’m eager to make it for Christmas. My question is about the size of the logs; the recipe states making them 1 1/2 inches wide but only 3/4 of an inch tall? I know that can’t be correct.
Hi Cathy, It’s correct; they spread to about 3 inches wide. It’s hard to tell from the photo but they are smaller than your typical coffee shop biscotti. If you want longer cookies, you can make the logs a bit wider and slice more on a diagonal.
I guess what I should have asked was what the approx. length of each log should be. Sorry about that. No coffee = not awake yet 🙂 Thanks Jenn!
🙂