A number of years ago, my family and I headed to Arizona for Christmas with my grandparents. Although they normally flew to California to spend the holidays with us, my grandma was in the hospital and couldn’t exactly board a plane… So we brought our usual festivities to her!
Each day, we drove a few miles through town from my grandparents’ house to the hospital, and while visiting Grandma, we played Christmas carols on the radio and retold stories of some of our favorite holiday memories from childhood. The hospital even granted us special permission to check Grandma out of her room for an hour one night, and we drove around the neighborhood looking at people’s twinkling lights strung up all over their houses.
Once we arrived back at their house in the evenings, we always found plenty of food to eat… Especially sweets! For almost 50 years, my grandma had baked dozens of loaves of fruitcake for family and friends every holiday season, and since she couldn’t that particular year, it seemed like everyone wanted to return the favor and bake something special to send to my grandparents instead.
Although nobody attempted to recreate Grandma’s fruitcake, we found bags and bags of homemade Christmas cookies made from people’s special family recipes. It made sense… Most of the cookies were fairly simple to make and shipped quite well!
Over the course of our Christmas visit, I ended up sampling one of almost every cookie flavor. Traditional gingerbread, classic sugar cookies, buttery shortbread, delicate spritz cookies, crunchy gingersnaps, Mexican wedding cookies, pecan sandies, bite-sized chocolate chip cookies, almond biscotti… I easily could’ve made an entire meal out of them!
Although not normally a fan of crunchy cookies, my eyes totally lit up while nibbling on a couple of the biscotti. They tasted amazing! The sweet almond flavor, that crisp texture, their adorable size and shape… I immediately fell in love with those Italian cookies, and I made a mental note to create a healthier version.
However… I kind of forgot. That’s what happens when you make mental notes instead of written ones, especially during the hectic holiday season! 
But when I spotted holiday displays at multiple stores a few weeks ago, including tins of festively flavored biscotti, I finally remembered my mental note from many years ago, and I immediately started working on my own healthier version. After many rounds of testing and tweaking, I finally perfected this recipe for the Ultimate Healthy Biscotti!
They’re perfectly crisp and crunchy with the same sweet and sophisticated almond flavor as traditional biscotti, and they’re really simple to make! These healthy biscotti taste incredible dipped in coffee or hot chocolate, and they’re definitely perfect for the holidays and any cookie trays too. (They’re sturdy and also ship well!) Plus they’re 57 calories!
Continue reading & see the rest! ›› The Ultimate Healthy Biscotti
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