Holiday traditions are so fun, especially when you’re first making them! Ever since I started baking a few years ago, I’ve enjoyed making my family edible gifts for Christmas. One year it was a box of homemade truffles and another year it was a gift basket filled with biscotti (chocolate, pecan, and gingerbread), local coffee, and chocolate bark. Well, ever since I made the biscotti, my family has always asked for more. We’re all coffee drinkers, so it just fits!

Since our little family has grown this year, I know we’ll be making a lot of new traditions with Liam as he gets older, especially in the kitchen. I can just picture him standing on a stool in the next few Christmases, helping me bake goodies for our family!

In addition to our new traditions that we’ll be making soon, I’m also looking forward to sharing our old family traditions with Liam, for example:

• Santa always wraps the door to the living room, where all of the toys are wrapped with care. The children have to wait until everyone is awake and ready to burst through the wrapping paper to get to the Santa-touched room.
• Breakfast is always served with a cracker. Not the traditional cracker, but the English cracker that you burst open to find a joke, small toy/game, and a paper crown! Everyone wears their crown during breakfast.
• A Chinese/Yankee swap is always held on Christmas. This is where everyone buys a present within a set budget, wraps it and puts it in a pile. Everyone draws a number in which to choose a present to open. That is your present unless someone steals it from you instead of opening a present (until it has had three owners, the third owner gets to keep it). If your present gets stolen, you can steal another gift that hasn’t had all three owners or open another present! Of course you can always trade in the end to make everyone happy, but it’s such a fun game!

Alright, back to these gorgeous biscotti! As for the flavor, The peppermint isn’t too overwhelming in these biscotti. I was looking for a beautiful balance of chocolate and peppermint and I found it! The crunchy peppermint candy topping is perfect, as well.

Here’s a photo that my father-in-law took as we were digging into the biscotti, espresso in hand:

Also, the biscotti are so versatile! You can make them big or little, cut at an angle or straight, or drizzled or slathered with white chocolate. The peppermint sprinkles are just a necessity to show what flavors hide beneath the frosty white chocolate!

Mmm, peppermint…my new friend.

Like I said last week, as part of McCormick’s ‘Seasonal Seven’, I’m here to share all things peppermint! I’m so thankful to be a part of the Seasonal Seven family this year, which consists of the following flavors at the heart of holiday dishes, both sweet and savory:

• Sage
• Cinnamon
• Poultry Seasoning
• Ginger
• Nutmeg
• Vanilla Extract
• Peppermint Extract – Woohoo!!!!

Thinking I was never a fan of peppermint all this time and being too afraid to try it was just too bad. I missed out on so many years of amazing flavor! Peppermint is such a beautiful compliment to chocolate, my all time favorite flavor. 😀

Each one of the Seasonal Seven is special and creates a romantic feeling for us during the holiday season, making us feel warm and cozy. I wish you and your family a happy holiday filled with family traditions, both old and new…and of course enjoy this delicious triple chocolate peppermint biscotti recipe!

What are some of your family traditions during the holiday season?

Double Chocolate Biscotti

adapted from Chocolate & Carrots

Ingredients