In Italian, biscotti means, "twice cooked." The word biscotto is derived from bis (twice) and cotto (cooked). Biscotti is also the generic term for cookies in Italian. The dough is formed into logs and baked until golden brown. The logs are then sliced, and the individual biscotti are baked again to give them their characteristic dryness. The shelf life of biscotti are three to four months without preservatives or additives. Other countries have their version of this cookie - Dutch rusk, French biscotte, and the German zwieback.

Dry Italian cookies flavored with almonds, chocolate, or anise seed, used for dunking in coffee and sweet dessert wine.

Italian cookie often hard in texture and lightly flavored with anise.

Biscotti (plural of Italian biscotto) are crisp Italian cookies often containing nuts or flavored with anise. Traditionally, biscotti are made by baking cookie dough in two long slabs, cutting them into half inch thick pieces, and reheating them to dry them out. A basic recipe is a mix two parts flour for one part sugar with enough eggs to create a batter.