Name: Anything Goes Biscotti
Cook time: 35 minutes
Total time: 1½ hours (plus cooling)
Yield: Makes about 30
Ingredients: 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar; 9 Tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature; 1 Tbsp. vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract; 1½ tsp. Diamond Crystal or 1 tsp. Morton kosher salt; 3 large eggs, room temperature; 3 cups (375 g) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting; ⅓ cup (35 g) unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder (such as Guittard Cocoa Rouge; optional); 2¼ tsp. baking powder; 2 cups mix-ins (such as coarsely chopped dried fruit, nuts, and/or chocolate chips; optional); Coarse sugar or flaky sea salt (for sprinkling; optional); 1 cup white, bittersweet, or semisweet chocolate chips (optional); 1 Tbsp. refined coconut oil (optional)

A mix of white and dark chocolate dipped biscotti on a plate with espresso.

Photo by Elizabeth Coetzee, Food styling by Rebecca Jurkevich

It’s hard to beat a duo as comforting as hot coffee (or cocoa) with golden biscotti. Bake up a batch of homemade biscotti for your overnight guests and watch their eyes light up as they feel truly taken care of. There are endless flavors of biscotti to choose from, but finding a recipe that suits the taste of everyone can be difficult—especially during the busy holidays. That’s where this versatile recipe comes in handy.

The beauty of this biscotti recipe lies in how adaptable it is. Find yourself with an abundance of hazelnuts? Throw them into the mix. Craving chocolate and peanut butter? Tint the biscotti with a dash of cocoa powder and add in some chopped peanuts. This recipe is designed to give you all of the information needed to customize your batch of biscotti to any taste, as long as you keep to the ratios. You can choose mix-ins or an optional crunchy sugar topping to add to a base dough formula that can skew either vanilla or chocolate, then dip in chocolate (or not) as desired.

The fact that biscotti are one of the easiest cookies to prep ahead of time is also helpful. If stored in an airtight container, biscotti can be kept at room temperature for a couple of weeks or stashed in the freezer for a few months without compromising their crisp-tender texture. Get our tips for packing and shipping cookie boxes here.