The Roman legion's American coffee-break: Xocolatl-cranberry biscotti

Biscotti—those cookies we in the U.S. dip in coffee—were originally created to feed the Roman legions. Being baked twice (“bis” is Latin for twice, and “coctum” for baked, which morphed into “cotto,” or cooked), these biscuits can be so hard that you fear for your teeth. But that means they can be easily stored and packed for journeys, and what did Roman soldiers care about teeth anyway?

The legions apparently had a profound passion for wheat-based foods—according to Steven K. Drummond and Lynn H. Nelson in their book The Western Frontiers of Imperial Rome, “the standard punishment for a unit guilty of cowardice was for every tenth man to be beaten to death with clubs and for the rest of the unit to have barley substituted for their wheat ration” (84). Ouch, barley—no question, a close second to death by clubbing.

I was inspired by a “bittersweet” baking contest on TheKitchn blog to go head-to-head with this venerable victual. My version of the ancient recipe brings together this native Italian food with two indigenous treasures of the Americas—Aztec-style chocolate and cranberries. The result is a spicy-tart-bittersweet tooth-cracking delight.

Xocoatl, a chilie-spiced hot chocolate drink that translates as “bitter water” in Aztec, ties this biscotti to chocolate’s birthplace. Associated with Xochiquetazal, the goddess of fertility, this elixir was seen as an energy enhancer and aphrodisiac—Montezuma II is said to have imbibed it in quantity. Hernán Cortés, who brought chocolate from the New World to Spain, described chocolate’s value to the Aztec in his second “Letter to Charles V” on October 30, 1520:

Cocoa is an almond-like fruit they grind and sell, and they value it so highly that it is used as coin throughout the land, and can buy all necessities in the marketplace and any other location.

(from Cartas y documentos, as cited in Crosscurrents by MindyBadía and Bonnie L. Gasior, 27)

Cranberries, for their part, are one of the three major types of fruit native to North America (along with Concord grapes and blueberries). The crimson swath of a cranberry bog was a familiar sight in colonial New England, and cranberries continue to daub the landscape of the American imagination. In her poem Sand Dabs, Six, for instance, American poet Mary Oliver conjures “The cranberry bog—its rim an old slop-happy red.” Our traditional Thanksgiving dinner reflects the cranberry’s storied place in our country’s history.

The biscotti recipe below, which received an Honorable Mention in The Kitchn's bittersweet baking contest, pairs the bitter flavors of bittersweet chocolate and tart cranberries with the sweetness of cinnamon cookie and dark chocolate accented with chilies.

Yields about 25 cookies

Ingredients

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg
2 2/3 cup pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup dried unsweetened cranberries
1/3 cup bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/3 cup dark chocolate with chilies, chopped (Dagoba "xocolatl" or similar bar)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cream the butter and add the two sugars, stirring until smooth and fluffy. Add the egg and mix until fully incorporated.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl, and add the wet mixture, stirring until fully incorporated. Mix in the cranberries and both types of chocolate. The batter will be very dry.

Line a baking sheet with parchment and shape the dough into two loaves about 1 inch tall and 2 inches wide. Bake 35 minutes, or until firm, dry, and cracked. Remove from over and cool for 30 minutes.

Lower oven temp. to 275 degrees. Cut the logs into 1/4-1/2 inch slices and lay them side-down on the baking sheet. Bake for 1 hour, or until dry.

Cool on a rack. Eat with coffee, dunking liberally.