We love a quick baking hack, like finding ways to make boxed cake mix taste homemade. When we don’t have time to whip up pastries and cookies from scratch that meet bakery standards, tricks like these can make easy recipes taste bakery quality. If you’re looking to make the crunchy Italian cookie called biscotti, one secret ingredient can make the process a lot easier: boxed cake mix.
It doesn’t seem logical at first; cake should be fluffy and moist, while biscotti should be dry and crunchy. To create the proper texture and consistency, a handful of modifications and added ingredients will be needed, but overall, these adjustments are minimal effort. Normally, biscotti dough requires precise measuring of flour, sugar, leavening agents, and wet ingredients, but cake mix provides a pre-measured, balanced base, making the process more foolproof. Because this baking hack cuts down so much on prep time, it’s a good option if making a large amount for gifts or a party. One box of cake mix, with the extra ingredients, will make a decent amount, around 24 cookies.
One of the best parts of cake mix biscotti is the endless flavor variations. Cake mix flavors like red velvet, yellow, strawberry, birthday cake, or spice would all make for unique flavors, while chocolate or vanilla mixes would make for a more classic flavor. It’s easy to customize the biscotti by adding mix-ins like chopped dried fruit, citrus zest, nuts, chocolate chips, or flavored extracts.
Considerations for using cake mix to make biscotti
The main modification you’ll have to make when using cake mix to make biscotti is to add an extra cup of flour. This addition will ensure that the biscotti has more of a dense, crunchy texture, rather than light, fluffy, and cakey. Biscotti should be able to be dipped in coffee or tea and hold up without immediately collapsing, and the crunchy texture helps with that.
Like cake mix, biscotti still calls for the addition of wet ingredients, like eggs and a fat. Most cake mix baking instructions recommend using a neutral vegetable oil, while most biscotti made from cake mix suggest using butter, which is standard in normal biscotti recipes. The butter contributes a richer flavor than vegetable oil. Many cake mixes are naturally vegan, so to make vegan biscotti, oil could be used, along with an egg replacement.
As with other recipes, biscotti made from cake mix gets twice-baked. First, the dough gets shaped into a small, thin loaf, or a log – if the dough feels too sticky to be shaped, feel free to dust your hands and the dough with a small amount of flour. After baking the loaf, it gets sliced into the iconic, oblong biscotti shape and baked again. The final step is another opportunity for customization: The biscotti can be dunked halfway in melted white or dark chocolate, or drizzled with the chocolate as a finishing touch.
