Pumpkin Biscotti
Pumpkin meets Italy with Pumpkin Biscotti studded with semisweet chocolate chips – the perfect cookie companion to dunk in your coffee.
Do you love biscotti?
On one hand, who doesn’t love an Italian cookie?
On the other hand, they’re super crunchy and kinda hurts your teeth unless you’re dunking it in coffee.
That’s why my biscotti recipes – banana biscotti, chocolate biscotti, gingerbread biscotti – are slightly softer than they should be.
And now that fall is here with all things pumpkin, it’s time to bring you my Pumpkin Biscotti.
They’re pumpkin spice biscotti with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and clove then studded with chocolate chips throughout.
I love pairing pumpkin and chocolate chips together; it just tastes so natural in my pumpkin bread mini loaves. Or maybe because I’m chocolate chip obsessed.
Pumpkin Biscotti with chocolate chips is also classy enough to serve for the holidays, such as your Thanksgiving Dinner For Two.
Or since they’re black and orange, serve them as a cute non-spooky Halloween cookie. You can even dip the ends in chocolate and decorate with Halloween sprinkles.
Whether you make them for your morning coffee or make a batch for Thanksgiving, you’re not going to want to skip this pumpkin biscotti recipe.
What is biscotti?
Biscotti translates into twice baked. That’s because you bake the dough, cool it, cut into slices, then bake again.
The second bake is designed to draw moisture out of the biscotti, resulting in hard, crunchy cookies resistant to mold.
That was important back in the day when explorers traveled and needed food to last a long time.
Even though traditional biscotti is so crunchy it’s almost hard to take a bite, my pumpkin biscotti are slightly soft and chewy, and I’m ok with that.
For biscotti purists, you may disagree, but for the rest of you, no need to hurt your teeth.
Ingredients For Pumpkin Biscotti
To make my recipe for pumpkin biscotti, you’ll need the following ingredients:
- All-purpose flour: Makes the dough less sticky. You’ll need extra flour to help shape it.
- Baking powder: Helps the dough rise
- Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and clove: Collectively known as pumpkin spice.
- Salt: Makes sure your cookies aren’t bland
- Sugar: Sweetens the dough
- Canned pumpkin: Make sure it’s pure pumpkin and not pumpkin pie filling.
- Butter: Although not typically an ingredient in traditional biscotti, butter does help soften the texture a bit so you can eat it without dunking.
- Egg: Helps bind the dough together.
- Vanilla: Enhances the pumpkin and chocolate chip flavors
- Chocolate chips: Not necessary but I love pumpkin and chocolate together. Use semisweet or dark chocolate chips.
Little bit of warning – this dough will be sticky. I increased the amount of flour slightly from the original recipe but didn’t want to add too much.
Just make sure you flour your hands and surface. Once you knead the dough, you can then transfer it to parchment paper to finish shaping.
How To Make Pumpkin Biscotti
To make your pumpkin spice biscotti:
- Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, and salt.
- Whisk together sugar, pumpkin, butter, egg, and vanilla.
- Gradually add flour mixture until a dough forms then stir in the chocolate chips. It should soft and slightly sticky. If it seems TOO sticky, you can add a little bit more flour, but be careful you don’t overdo it. Too much flour and your biscotti will be too dry.
- Lightly knead the dough then transfer to parchment paper. Pat it out into a log that is roughly 8 inches by 6 inches, no more than 1/4 inch high.
- Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes or until brown, set on the edges, and center is firm. Remove from the oven but leave the oven on as you’re not done baking yet.
- Cut into 1 inch wide pieces with a serrated knife then place cut side down back onto the baking sheet
- Bake 8 minutes then flip and bake for another 8 minutes or until dry and firm. Cool completely.
How To Store Pumpkin Biscotti
The type of container you use to store your biscotti will affect their texture. To maintain its crispiness, store in a metal tin.
You can store them in a plastic container. However, plastic will soften your biscotti greatly. If you like that, great.
If not, you can reheat the biscotti at 300F for 10 minutes to crisp up again.
How To Freeze Pumpkin Biscotti
To freeze your homemade biscotti:
- Cool completely then place on a baking sheet with parchment paper in a single layer.
- Freeze uncovered until hard, about 30-60 minutes.
- Wrap each cookie in plastic wrap then place inside a freezer-safe bag.
- Freeze for up to up 3 months.
To defrost, let them sit at room temperature until thawed.
Due to the moisture from freezing, your biscotti won’t be as crunchy. If you’d like them crunchy again, reheat in a 350F oven for 5-10 minutes.
Pumpkin Biscotti FAQ
Yes! Pumpkin biscotti is great to mail as gifts because the cookies are sturdy enough and still taste great after a week. To learn more about mailing Christmas cookies, check out my Double Peanut Butter Cookies for easy tips and tricks.
For biscotti without chocolate chips, omit them completely or substitute chopped pecans.
Yes, you can substitute 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice for the individual spices.
Yes, you can double this pumpkin biscotti recipe. You will need to use two baking sheets.
More Pumpkin Recipes
Since you’ll likely have leftover canned pumpkin, use it all up in these pumpkin recipes:
- Small Pumpkin Pie
- Eggless Pumpkin Pie
- Mini Pumpkin Cheesecakes
- Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes
- Pumpkin Cheesecake Brownies
- Pumpkin Cannoli
- Pumpkin Mac and Cheese
Pumpkin Biscotti
Pumpkin meets Italy with Pumpkin Biscotti studded with semisweet chocolate chips – the perfect cookie companion to dunk in your coffee.
Ingredients
- 1 + 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon*
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg*
- 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger*
- 1/8 teaspoon ground clove*
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F. Line one cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, and salt.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, pumpkin, butter, egg, and vanilla until smooth.
- Gradually stir the flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture until a dough forms and all of the flour is incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips. The dough should be soft and slightly sticky.
If it seems TOO sticky, you can add a little bit more flour, but be
careful you don’t overdo it. Too much flour and your biscotti will be too dry. - On a floured surface with floured hands, lightly knead the dough. Add a little more flour if the dough is too sticky.
- Place the dough onto the parchment paper and pat out into a log that is roughly 8 inches by 6 inches, no more than 1/4 inch high.
- Bake 20-25 minutes or until brown, set on the edges, and center is firm. Remove from the oven but leave the oven on.
- Cool the cookies for 10 minutes then transfer to a cutting board. With a serrated knife, cut the log into 1 inch wide pieces.
- Place cut side down back onto the cookie sheet and bake 8 minutes. Flip and bake for another 8 minutes or until dry and firm. Cool completely.
Notes
- *Instead of individual spices, substitute 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice for the cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and ginger.
- To double this recipe, multiply the ingredients by 2 then use two cookie sheets for baking.
- Enjoyed this recipe? Check out my recipes for Banana Biscotti, Chocolate Biscotti, and Gingerbread Biscotti.
- Got leftover pumpkin? Check out my other pumpkin recipes.
Source: Adapted from Simply Recipes
Originally published November 14, 2013
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I love a good biscotti recipe and this twist with pumpkin sounds delicious! I’m sure I couldn’t eat just one.
These look great! I need to add them to my Xmas cookie tray.
Pumpkin meets Italy…hehe, I love that! These look delicious. Perfect to go with coffee in the morning. :)
yum! Chocolate Biscotti!!
Oh Carla, these look awesome! I love biscotti, especially since it gives me an excuse to eat cookies early in the morning :) And I like that these are chewier- those tooth busting ones at so many coffee shops are not my jam!
ooooooh love how faaancy these beauties are! yay biscotti (with chocolate!)
These look delicious! It’s about time to get in the kitchen and make some more yummy biscotti!
I will use cinnamon chips in place of chocolate as I do not like to mix chocolate with pumpkin.
I think the cinnamon chips will make a great substitution!
Oh, yeah. I love the idea of a pumpkin biscotti…especially with the addition of chocolate chips!
This is such a great treat for me. I love biscotti and I love pumpkin!
How do you prepare the ginger?
Ground ginger located in the spice aisle
This sounds amazing. I’ve made your other biscotti recipes. I’m looking for a cranberry nut recipe. I know that I can adapt it, but with the wet pumpkin and banana(from the other recipe) I’m not sure if I should add another egg or a bit of water to moisten it.
Suggestions on this? I’m thinking an egg would do the trick since I’m omitting the other wet ingredient.
I haven’t tried it myself, but typically pumpkin and banana are used to substitute for egg, so that’s a good place to start. You may also need to use slightly less flour since the batter may not be as wet (hard to say without making it – you might be able to reduce it by 1/4 cup or you may still need the full amount). What I usually do is cross reference recipes similar to what you want, figure out similarities and differences (in your case see how many eggs and what the ratio of eggs to flour is), then adjust the recipe to how you want it. If you feel 3 eggs is too much, you can also do 2 eggs + 1 egg white or yolk. Let me know how it goes!