More Biscotti for the Holidays

We've looked at biscotti already this holiday season but today we have another brand's biscotti to reveal to you all -- Nonni's, a new brand for our growing list of products we test and write about to help you, Sisters and Brothers, make better chocolate buying decisions.  These Nonni's Biscotti Bites may be found on your grocer's shelves in some areas so it isn't too late to add them to your holiday party or feast menus. If you've tried these before, let us know what you thought about them in a comment.  Please remember that we love seeing comments and we do reply to each and every one of them that we get. To help test these, I made a basic hot cocoa available to my tasters since biscotti cookies are often dunked in a warm liquid before enjoying. Some tasters did that, some did not. Below is our collective opinions about the the two samples The Chocolate Cult was sent.

The Double Chocolate Salted Caramel Bites come in a 4.75oz, orangish design bag. These are milk chocolate biscotti with the back and the straight bottom, sometimes the front, covered or drizzled in more milk chocolate. This has chocolate liquor and cocoa butter though for some odd reason also palm oil; primarily the ingredient list is easy to understand which only a handful of chemicals.  It does have wheat, milk, soy and eggs if those are allergy or food lifestyle choices you need to think about. As you can see in our photo they are about a 2-3 bite treat. But you want to know how they taste, smell, feel, etc, don't you? The strongest scent is a tangy caramel really followed by a soy creaminess; no cocoa in terms of fragrance. Our tasters liked this one the best of the two varieties.  They felt it had a great balance between salt, tangy caramel, and a definite cocoa flavor.  Dunked it soaked up the liquid well without getting too soft but it wasn't so hard that it was brittle and still fun to eat in 2-3 bites. We noticed that the way the coating of chocolate was added to the chocolate cookie varied greatly -- some was drizzled on the top, some of one side was completely covered, while others had the flat side dipped higher or lower. This made us feel like these are handcrafted.

The Almond Dark Chocolate Bites come in a 5oz, reddish design bag; these have tree nuts. These are vanilla biscotti with the straight edge dipped in bittersweet chocolate; as you can in our photo how far they were dipped varies a bit from piece to piece. Besides tree nuts, allergens include wheat, milk, soy, and eggs. These are made with chocolate liquor and cocoa butter, happily no palm oil and fewer chemical names on the ingredients list. The primary scents from these are almond and wheat with a subtle sweetness; oddly the bittersweet chocolate gives off only a light fragrance. So let's turn to the other sense of our tasters. These were the same texture over all, not too hard on their own but also good for dunking. The almonds were a solid flavor along with vanilla but the dark chocolate was equally strong when you bit into it.  There was less chocolate on these and all of them had the straight bottom dipped, no drizzles, no entire side coated. Personally I liked these the best because I felt they soaked up the hot cocoa better.

Have you seen these or other Nonni's products in your local stores?  If so please let us know where below so other readers can find them. We thought these were yummy and highly recommend that you check them out if you haven't seen them or tried them already. There is one more variety of the Biscotti Bites that doesn't have chocolate but these two go find and buy, Sisters and Brothers.