Cake Mix Biscotti To Try Right Now!
A sweet, crunchy biscotti that will rival anything you can get at the bakery! We love the golden color of these yummy cookies and the crunch of sliced almonds and the fact that this recipe is dead easy.
Don’t like cranberries? Then switch it up and add chocolate chips! Or coconut, or pecans…..
Just about anything you could put into a cookie, you can add to this basic biscotti recipe. And they make a wonderful homemade food gift!
Let me show how!
The easy part? The base for this recipe is a cake mix! That’s right! So you can pick up the ingredients on your way home today, and whip up some delicious biscotti for a weekend treat.
They are perfect with a big mug of hot chocolate or your favourite coffee. Need some homemade food gift ideas? Everyone loves Biscotti!
Recently I’ve switched to use a white (or vanilla) cake mix and include cranberries and sliced almonds. All the steps in the recipe are still the same, but I love the crunchy sweetness of this combination!
This post was originally published on August 28, 2017 and updated on December 17, 2020.
You will need: sliced natural almonds, 1 pkg yellow or white cake mix, eggs, flour, unsalted butter and vanilla extract, cranberries & sliced or whole almonds.
We have lots of easy cake mix recipes! Be sure to try our lemon loaf cake, fudgy brownies, pineapple upside down cake and lemon poppyseed muffins!
Cake Mix Biscotti!
CAKE MIX BISCOTTI BACKSTORY
Mark and I just returned from a glorious 14 day vacation to Italy. It truly was the trip of a lifetime.
Florence, Rome, Tuscany with so many wonderful places in between! One of the highlights of the trip?
An outdoor concert featuring Andrea Bocelli in his home town of Lajotica. The concert was really outdoors in a huge field, but the sound, underneath the stars, in Italy? Well I’m sure you get the idea.
After several wonderful days in Florence, we took a high speed train to Rome, where we soaked up the amazing culture and enjoyed a Gelato or two – like we did here at the Piazza Navona.
Another highlight of our trip was Cantucci Toscani – Italian Almond Biscotti! We developed a real passion for these delicious little Italian cookies. Ok, it was close to obsession.
By the time we were ready to leave our last location, the beautiful Castello del Nero in Tavernelle val di Pesa – we were hooked! They were bringing us two bowls at a time. 🙂
I was determined I would have to learn to make biscotti when we returned home. By the way, if you ever want to visit the most romantic and luxurious hotel spa in Tuscany, the Castello del Nero is it!
We would go back in a heartbeat! An amazing facility, excellent staff and customer service and well the food makes you think you are in Heaven. Yes, it’s that good.
This resort is a Michelin One Star, and the Chef even gave me his recipe for these amazing biscotti!
So what is Biscotti Cake?
Now before we get to the fun stuff – making your very own biscotti from a cake mix – just like Betty Crocker! (Ha! Ha!) I wanted to share some very cool information.
A long ago practice was to use leftover cake (who has leftover cake?) and make biscotti. Biscotti cookies are twice baked, so cooks would like their leftover cakes (think stale) into small strips and bake them twice to get a hard crunchy biscotti.
These leftover biscotti cakes weren’t layer cakes, but usually a denser pound cake or loaf style of cake.
TIPS FOR MAKING PERFECT CAKE MIX BISCOTTI
- Blend the ingredients well, including the almonds.
- Follow the recipe instructions exactly.
- Mixing up the ingredients, I found the dough to be a bit sticky. I made sure my board and hands were well floured!
- Roll the dough so that you will get a biscotti ‘shape’ when they are sliced – once baked they will look like a biscotti cake.
- Make sure the biscotti dough slices are thin enough so that you will get a lovely crunch on the second bake.
YOU MAY NEED…
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YOU MAY ALSO LIKE…
Want more Italian cookie recipes? They are so many different varieties, like these the Baci di Dama from Natasha’s Kitchen!
Biscotti make excellent homemade food gifts too! Our other easy cake mix recipe is the classic Pineapple Upside Down Cake, everyone loves it!
How Do You Make Biscotti From Cake Mix?
A yellow cake mix, plus delicious raw unsalted almonds, butter and vanilla. Save a little time, enjoy the convenience of a cake mix and still have that exquisite crunchy vanilla flavour. And voila! Cake Mix Biscotti was born. Delizioso! I’ve set out the steps here for you. 🙂
CAKE MIX BISCOTTI ~ CANTUCCI TOSCANI
These amazing Cake Mix Biscotti baked up like a dream, and my family raved about them at a recent Brunch we had together.
And they all went home with little bags of biscotti! Of course I kept a few back for us! You can be creative here too, maybe add some dried fruit like cranberries, or some mini chocolate chips?
The possibilities for you to make exquisite biscotti too are endless. So here is my Cake Mix Biscotti recipe just for you. And if you don’t have time to print out the recipe right now, why not Pin It for later?
If you like the recipe, please give it a 5 star rating.
xo Judy
Quick Cake Mix Biscotti
Click to Rate!
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 Yellow Cake Mix - 15.25 oz/432g
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 4 large eggs - room temperature
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter - melted
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup almonds - sliced or whole, raw
- 1/4 cup dried cranberries - or chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F degrees.
- Pour the cake mix into a mixing bowl. Stir in sifted all purpose flour.
- Make a well in the centre and add the eggs, butter and vanilla extract. Stir in the almonds.
- With an electric beater mix on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes until the dough does not stick to the sides of the mixing bowl. It will look and feel like play dough!
- On a lightly floured board, divide dough into two halves.
- Roll each half into a log about 1" in diameter.
- Roll each log gently to the edge of the board and then continue rolling it onto a lightly sprayed 11” x 15” baking sheet.
- Flatten the top of each cookie log until it is about 3" wide.
- Bake for 20 minutes.
- Remove baking sheet from the oven and let stand for 10 minutes.
- Reduce oven temperature to 325 and do not turn off.
- Gently slide one cookie log onto the board that you rolled out the dough on.
- Using a serrated knife or better still an electric carving knife, slice each log across the width into 3/4" slices.
- Place cookies cut side down back onto the baking sheet and return them to the oven for another 10 minutes.
- Remove cookies to cooling rack to cool completely.
- Enjoy!
Notes
Tag @pieladybakes on Instagram and hashtag it #pieladybakes
Nutrition
These are estimated values generated from a nutritional database using unbranded products. Please do your own research with the products you’re using if you have a serious health issue or are following a specific diet.
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Judy Kahansky
Judy Kahansky is an experienced writer and baker, creating delicious desserts (including pie!) for over 40 years. She loves to take classic and vintage recipes and update them to fit the busy lives of her readers. When not baking, Judy and her husband Mark are passionate golfers, enjoy the simple life, and are travelers and dog lovers, spending as much time as they can with their sweet pup Ruby.
Very good.
thanks so much!
I used a spice cake mix, vanilla, dried cranberries, raisins, walnuts and pecans. Tasty and just sweet enough. A tip to get it to hold together better is to roll it out into a sheet then roll it up jelly roll fashion into a log, flatten it to 3″ wide. The spice version reminded me and my friend of the almond windmill shaped cookies we grew up on. Not a breakfast eater so a few of these are perfect for me. Thank you for sharing this recipe. Will try other versions.
Not sure what happened, as I followed the recipe, but never got the dough like consistency. In fact I added another cup of flour and extra mixing time. It seems 4 eggs might be too many?
Hi Michelle, I’m sorry to hear that? I’ve made this recipe dozens of times without fail. I’m wondering if the cake mix was fresh or had expired? Just a thought. I hope you try it again.
Same very wet: added almost 3/4 cup A flour. I read the recipe over three times to make sure I had everything right next time I will use three eggs. All ingredients were fresh, including the cake mix
I made these with a funfetti cake mix! Made a few variations with juice of small orange and zest. Otherwise followed as directed. Next time will add more cranberry and almonds. Delicious and so easy
What a great idea! That’s the beauty of this recipe. xo
The biscotti, made exactly as the recipe states, are in the oven for the final bake (with slightly fewer than what came out of the oven at the end of the first bake). They smelled and looked so delicious we had to try a slice or two and they were as expected – yummy. Thank you for this recipe, we will be using it regularly as is and with any number of variations we can concoct.
So glad you loved it! This biscotti recipe makes wonderful food gifts too!
Can I use salted butter since I have only this?
Sure you can! Just don’t add any additional salt to the recipe. Hope that helps!
I was wondering can I leave out the nuts and cranberries and just make a vanilla biscott?
Hi Jan That’s the beauty of this recipe you can change it up the way you want. However, the biscotti will have a different texture without the nuts. A true Italian biscotti usually has sliced almonds in it, but you can make it your way. The baking times shouldn’t change too much, try reducing the bake time by 5 minutes or so.
The dough was so sticky I could hardly remove from the mixing bowl. Did I mix too much or not enough?
Hi Pat, I haven’t had that happen before. Some tips to try would be sifting the cake mix, and not overmixing. Thanks for posting.
If I don’t want to do almonds but want both cranberries and chocolate chips which should I sub the almonds for ? More heavy on the chips or the cranberries? And would it be for the full amount of both listed ingredients in original recipe ?
Hi Rosie, you could sub the chocolate chips for the almonds. The liquid should be fine. Maybe fewer chips than almonds, because they will cook down a bit when you bake the biscotti. Enjoy.
How can I incorporate marzipan into this biscotti recipe?
Thank you
Hi Kathleen, I haven’t tried including marzipan in this recipe. You could experiment by chopping it into bite site pieces and coating it with powdered sugar. Just remember that this is a cake mix recipe, and the result might be too sweet. But the fun is in trying different ideas out right?
So excited to try this! In this recipe it says 1 cup of whole almonds. Can I sub with 1 cup of sliced almonds? Also, if I did want to add dried cranberries or try out mini choc chips- how much would I add? Thanks in advance!
Hi Shellbee, thanks for reaching out! Yes absolutely change the almonds to sliced if you wish and chocolate chips are fine. Just add the same amount as the cranberries. Enjoy!
@Judy Kahansky Ok I don’t know if I am blind, but I cannot find the amount of cranberry to use? LOL I was thinking of using those almond slivers and dried cranberries! This will be my first time making bisotti. Do you think that would work?
Hi there, I’ve updated the recipe card to make it clear. Usually 1/4 cup of either dried cranberries or chocolate chips. Hope that helps!
Hi Judy. Quick question,
Can I use a chocolate cake mix? The yellow is delicious.
HI Sharon! Absolutely, that sounds delicious.
I’m excited to try the recipe
I have a question in the ingredients list it says butter in the process it says margarine, can I use either one?
Hi Sophia! I’ve used both butter and margarine – either one is fine. Thanks.
im goin to try this recipe i alwys have bad luck . thank.
Hi Clarissa, just follow the recipe step by step and you should be fine.
Very good I used lemon cake mix and lomon glaze !!!
Hi Jeannette! That sounds amazing! With almonds? I’m thinking maybe dried blueberries or cranberries with that instead of almonds. Thanks so much for stopping by! xo
Very good I used lemon cake mix and lomon glaze !!!