Pumpkin Biscotti

The coffee cake took care of the fresh-roasted pumpkin, but I still had some purée in the freezer.  I decided to make biscotti out of them, and opted for a variation of King Arthur Flour's recipe, using the comments as a guide.

I should have listened more to the one comment about them being too hard.  These definitely don't need to be dried as long as the recipe states.  They should be pulled from the oven when the middles are still a tiny bit soft.  They did soften up quickly in hot drinks, but were rocks otherwise.

If you don't want to make these as biscotti, but as regular cookies, I would scoop them out and bake the original 25 minutes.  They will not spread too much and will develop a crunchy exterior.  I'm assuming the  centers will stay relatively soft.  At worst, they would be dunking cookies.

1/4 C unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 C sugar
*1-1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp cinnamon
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg, room temperature
*1/2 C pumpkin purée
2 C flour

1.  Preheat oven to 350º and line a baking sheet with parchment or a Silpat.

2.  In a medium bowl with an electric beater, cream together butter, sugar, spices, baking powder, and salt.  I didn't wait for the butter to soften, and things got messy fast.  I'm used to doing creaming recipes in the stand mixer, with its high sides.  The only reason you're doing this with a hand one is because the amounts are too small for the stand mixer to be effective.

3.  Beat in egg and pumpkin.  It's going to smell lovely.  Stir in the flour until you get a dough.

4.  Shape dough into two logs on the cookie sheet, roughly 10" by 2-1/2" and a little over an inch high.  Bake 25 minutes, until the logs have a bit of a crust to them.

5.  Remove the baking sheet from the oven and wait about 5 minutes, while you turn down the oven to 325º.  Slice the logs crosswise with a very sharp knife into 1/2" to 3/4" slices.  Arrange the slices with some space between them and put them back in the oven for another 15 minutes.  The outer edges should seem fairly dry, but the middles will be a bit soft.

6.  Remove cookies to a rack and cool completely.  If desired, ice with powdered sugar glaze, royal icing, or white chocolate ganache (what I did).

Makes about 2 dozen

Difficulty rating  :)