Holiday baking time again

It's time once again to crank up the punk rock, open a bottle of wine and make a huge mess in the kitchen. It's holiday baking time!

Since biscotti proved so easy to make last year, I'm doing them again, and this year I'm using three recipes I found in The Gourmet Cookbook.

• Apricot Almond Biscotti dipped in milk chocolate
• Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti dipped in white chocolate
• Double Chocolate Walnut Biscotti maybe dipped in dark chocolate. I have to see how rich these before deciding whether to add extra chocolate.

It should be noted that the recipes don't call for dipping the cookies in chocolate. I just think everything's better with more chocolate.

On the shortbread front, I have a few options. I'm definitely making the Cheddar Cheese Pecan shortbreads again because I think my friends might riot if I didn't! Rosemary Pinenut Shortbread is also an option as is plain shortbread so that I can use the shortbread pan with the thistle design that I got for Christmas a couple of years ago.

So far, that's all I have formally planned to make, but knowing me, I'll probably make dried fruit and nut bark at the last minute or maybe a batch of truffles.

First step is to survey my pantry and make a list of ingredients I need to stock up on.