Before yesterday, my husband had never had biscotti. Amazing, because trust me on this, he loves dessert. But so many biscotti recipes incorporate almonds and we're both allergic to the little guys. So I wanted to made a biscotti that my husband would love - which meant it had to have chocolate somewhere in it. For this recipe I used ground anise seed and anise extract to suggest the traditional almond flavor along with some brandy. I folded in some chocolate chips at the end. The biscotti is great even without the glaze, but I felt the glaze dressed it up a little more for a dessert and the orange, anise and brandy flavors in the glaze served to further bring out the anise flavor in the biscotti. Unglazed, this biscotti would be great crumbled up in a semifreddo in place of amaretti cookies, or I could see this all ground up and combined with butter and lemon zest for a crust for a cheesecake instead of graham crackers. All fun things to try in the future. Important Tip: use chocolate chips instead of slivers from a bar of chocolate. Unlike bar chocolate, the melting properties of chocolate chips are designed to better hold their shape during the baking process. This will be important when you go to slice the biscotti before baking it the second time.

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