Cranberry Almond Biscotti

I have always wanted to try making biscotti. I'm a dunker and there is no more an ultimate dunking cookie than the biscotti.
I had some almonds and cranberries in the house, so this is what I came up with - the Cranberry Almond Biscotti.
They turned out lovely and worked out to be perfect holiday party hostess gifts!

 What You'll Need:

• 1 large bowl
• 1 small bowl
• 1 baking tray
• Hand mixer
• 1 large, sharp knife
• 1 1/4 cups of all-purpose, sifted flour
• 3/4 cup of white sugar
• 1/4 cup of light brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 room temperature egg whites
• 2 room temperature medium-sized eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg - optional
• 3/4 cup sliced almonds
• 3/4 cup dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup dark chocolate (for melting over top) - optional
• 1/4 cup flour (for rolling out your dough with)

What You'll Do:

• Pre-heat your oven to 325 F
• Combine all your dry ingredients into your large bowl
• In your small bowl, whisk your egg whites and eggs, vanilla extract and spices until just frothy
• Using your hand mixer at a low to medium speed, add your egg mixture to your dry ingredients and mix until just combined, this will create a large batter ball that will be slightly tacky
• Stir in your almonds and cranberries until evenly distributed in the batter
• On a floured surface, divide your mixed batter into two equal parts
• Pat each half into the shape of a log, ideally a 10-14" log
• Place each batter log onto your baking tray (I cover mine with parchment paper, but this isn't necessary though it does provide easy clean-up!)
• Bake for 30 minutes
• Remove from the oven and let cook for 10-15 minutes, or until the baked batter log is cool enough to handle
• Reduce the oven heat to 300F
• Using our large knife, cut the baked log into 1/2" slices
• Once the oven has cooled, place the cut pieces back onto the baking tray, standing up, and spacing them about 1 inch apart

• Bake for an additional 20 minutes
• While they are finishing being baked, melt your dark chocolate
• Prepare a plastic bag to use to drizzle the melted chocolate onto your biscotti by cutting a small hole in the corner of your bag
• Once the chocolate has melted, spoon it into the bag
• Remove your cookies from the oven and drizzle the melted chocolate on top
• Move your cookies to a cooling rack and let sit and cool

The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 1.5
Taste: 2
Ease: 1 (they are not really that hard to make, but cutting them without them crumbling is hard to do at first and they take a while to prepare and dress)