Banana Bread Biscotti

Take a classic banana bread and add those flavors to Italian biscotti… Banana Bread Biscotti are the perfect way to use up some of your very sweet and ripe bananas. These delightful biscotti are so nice dipped in your coffee or tea. The dough comes together without a mixer! It seems that these days I’ve been ending up with more ripe bananas than normally do. Maybe because my mom used to come by almost every day and I would end up sharing my bananas with her. Or she would just look at my pile of abandoned and ripe bananas and grab a few and say, “I’m going to make banana muffins!” Or, “I’m going to make you guys a banana bread.” What is really nice about this recipe is that you’re using up those sad and lonely very ripe bananas and you can make the whole thing by hand! It’s a ½ cup of ripe mashed up bananas. So it should be one large banana or two small ones.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground nutmeg
½ cup packed dark or light brown sugar
½ cup mashed very ripe banana about 2 small bananas
1 large egg
4 tbs coconut oil
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
½ cup walnuts toasted and roughly chopped divided (or almonds)

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and lightly grease with cooking spray. Set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and the spices. Set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk together the mashed banana, egg, coconut oil, and vanilla extract until smooth. Pour into the dry ingredients, along with ⅓ cup of the walnuts. Stir until all the dry ingredients combined in the wet. The dough will be a bit sticky. (If you find it to be too sticky to handle, you could scrape out the dough and add a touch of flour onto a clean counter and work the dough together until it’s cohesive with your hands.) Scrape out the dough with a rubber spatula onto a lined cookie sheet and divide dough in half. Spray hands with cooking spray; form each piece of dough into a 2½ inch wide (½ inch thick) log. Sprinkle on top of the logs the remaining almonds (or walnuts). Score the logs diagonally with a very sharp knife. This is mom’s biscotti baking pro top and will help to slice when they are baked. Bake until dough is firm but gives slightly when pressed, about 20-25 minutes.
Transfer sheet to a wire rack and let logs cool 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 300F.
Transfer the loaf carefully to a cutting board. Using a long serrated knife, cut each log on the diagonal (if you scored the dough, follow the marks you made with your knife) into ½ inch thick slices; place slices, cut side up, on sheet.
Bake 7 minutes, flip biscotti, and bake 7 minutes more. Let cool completely (they will also dry out a bit more) on wire rack. Enjoy!

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