This is the first time I have ever tried making biscotti but is definitely not my last. Everybody enjoyed this recipe. I knew in advance I would since cardamom is one of my favourite baking spices.

DELICIOUS! This biscotti thrilled the Scandinavian in all of us. What a wonderful treat with coffee, too! Excellent!

We LOVE this recipe. Every Christmas, my Dad and I (with some help from the kids), bake about 2000 cookies. This is one of the recipes we use year after year. These cookies disappear off the cookie platter faster than most of the others. I always add a little extra sour cream. Be sure to chop the almonds pretty small or the slices will crumble when you cut them. I also pull them a little earlier than 30 minutes as the more the loaves bake, the harder it is to get clean slices. I also recommend a 3/4 inch slice instead of 1/2 inch. I often drizzle chocolate over half the batch for a little visual appeal. Thanks for the great recipe!

The dough was a little dry, but fixed it with a little blob of extra sour cream. Added about 1/2 tsp of cinnamon and some dark chocolate chips; reduced the sugar to 1 1/2 cups. Really, really nice results. :) The cardamom goes so well with chocolate!

Two things. One, cardamom is an acquired taste. If you're not sure, use ginger with some nutmeg instead. I only use cardamom in savory recipes, for it can be overpowering. I've tried it in biscotti and didn't like it. Second, and most importantly, this recipe doesn't have enough moistening ingredients. You shouldn't have to work to bring together a biscotti dough, and with this, you'll be getting your hands dirty just to force the dough to come together. This almost always leads to a crumbly product come slicing time. Butter doesn't lend itself to great biscotti, either, believe it or not. It's difficult to find the right balance of other moistening ingredients without getting crumbly slices. Too much moisture is just as bad as not enough. Enough rant. Use 3 eggs in this recipe, or two eggs and a tablespoon or two of rum or some other liqueur. Or simply cut back on the flour by a 1/2 cup.

I followed this recipe with one tiny exception; I ran out of almond extract so had to sub 1 of the teaspoons with vanilla. I used whole almonds and coarsely chopped them and it was really nice to have a chunkier almond crunch to the cookie. I've made biscotti before, but found this recipe difficult to work with. When I went to slice it after the first bake, it crumbled and fell apart very easily and therefore did not make a very nice-looking cookie. I tried, on the second batch, taking it out of the oven earlier than 30 minutes and slicing it; it was still a little doughy in the middle, but it did slice a bit better. Both batches took a lot longer than 5-6 minutes to bake on the second baking. In spite of all of that, they do taste VERY good. I would make them again and try adding more cardamom; really like that spice. Thanks for the recipe, Verna. UPDATE: I gave this another try and made sure that I rolled the dough log out to 15". I also mixed the dough in the food processor, upped the cardamom to 1.5tsp, and, again, did the 2nd bake for 10mins, rather than 5-6. They came out pretty perfect this time. Great golden color and good biscotti texture. I also dipped some of them in white chocolate. These were very popular over the Christmas holidays with our guests; they were going for them even at breakfast time! Thanks again, Verna!