Ginger & Dark Chocolate Biscuits

It's very rare I buy biscuits for the house as I usually make them, apart from boring digestives for things like cheesecake. If I do buy biscuits I adore Green & Blacks ginger biscuits. Unfortunately I can't find them anywhere and they no longer feature on the G&B website. They were crispy biscuits with a strong ginger kick and dipped in 70% dark chocolate. With a sweet craving, that a horrible microwave jam sponge wasn't going to hit, I decided to play around with some store cupboard ingredients to try and emulate the delicious G&B biscuit.

Not in the mood for faffing around with dipping the biscuits I chopped up a 70% G&B bar and stirred it into the biscuit dough. They worked well even if they do look a bit ugly. They have a noticeable ginger taste, but I would be quite happy to double the amount of ginger and even try it with stem ginger. You'd never guess I like my ginger! I've enjoyed these with my mid morning cuppa...and have been trying to sneak some while Hubby isn't looking.

Ginger & Dark Chocolate Biscuits
Makes approx 20


115g softened butter or margarine
50g granulated sugar
70g muscovado sugar
1 egg
125g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground ginger (double if you like lots of ginger)
75g 70% dark chocolate, chopped

1) Preheat the oven to 180oc. Beat together butter and the two sugars until light and fluffy. Then gently beat in the egg, flour, bicarb and ginger. Fold in chocolate.

2) On a lined baking tray, blob teaspoons of the mixture. As these spread leave about 3cm between each biscuit. Bake for 10, until golden.

3) After baking, transfer straight away to a wire rack to harden. You'll probably need something like a fish slice to move them as before they have hardened they are quite floppy.

Cherry Bakewell Biscuits

With a hectic and stressful week in work I wanted to do some stress relieving baking and a recipe I found on a forum I lurk on, ticked all the right boxes. The recipe is based on Smitten Kitchen's slice & bake cookie palette. I've never made a biscuit like this before, but I think I now may be hooked. It is such an easy technique and it was nice coming home from work with some fresh dough in the fridge knowing I was less than 15 min away from freshly baked biscuits. These are also the first biscuits (I think) that I've made in my KitchenAid. I did a half batch as quite frankly my hips are turning more Nigellaesque by the day.

While looking through my baking cupboard for biscuit fillings I found some glace cherries that really needed to be used. Along with my almond extract the idea hit me. Biscuits inspired by my favourite cake, a Bakewell tart and so it was born - Cherry Bakewell Biscuits.

They are incredibly moreish and Hubby & I are trying not to eat them all in one sitting, and yes they do taste like the hallowed Bakewell. The primary reason for making them is for a treat in our lunchboxes as if I know I've got a little homemade treat in my box I'm less inclined to raid the staffroom biscuit tin. I've already started to think about other variations of this biscuit - dark chocolate & sour cherry, lemon & poppyseed, apricot & almond...

Cherry Bakewell Biscuits
Based on Smitten Kitchen's slice & bake cookie palette
Makes 25

115g unsalted butter, room temperature
40g icing sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp almond extract
140 plain flour
100g glace cherries, chopped

1) Beat together butter and sugar until you have a buttercream, then beat in yolk and extract.

2) Add cherries and flour then beat again until ingredients are well combined. Flatted dough into a disk, cover in clingfilm and chill for 30 min.

3) Remove the dough from the fridge and roll out into a long log with a diameter of around 3cm. Wrap back up in the cling film and chill for a further 2 hours (minimum). If the dough isn't chilled sufficiently it will begin to misshape when it is sliced ready for baking.

4) Preheat oven to 180oc. Cut the dough log into rounds about 1cm thick and place on a lined baking tray. Bake for 12-14 min until they are cooked. Once cooked transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Mini Egg Tiffin

I can't believe how fast this week has gone. I'm already half the way through my Easter hols. It's now Good Friday and our Easter tree has been up for about a week. I was first introduced to Easter trees 20 years ago in Germany and decided I wanted one in our house this year. Traditionally you are meant to have some branches in buds, but apart from hacking away at nextdoor's plants I decided to use some decorative branches we already had in the house. I picked up the decorations at a garden centre. It's added a nice bit of colour to the lounge.

I've done quite a bit of Easter baking recently; primarily Simnel Cupcakes and Mini Egg Tiffin for work. I've made the tiffin 3 times in the last few week. First was for my work mates, second for Hubby's workmates (who consequently threatened to hold Hubby to ransom until I made them some more!) and then I decided I couldn't let Hubby & I go without. As I have quite a few other things on my plate at the moment it had to be a quick Easter cake...plus Mini Eggs are my weakness. Forget creme eggs, far too sickly sweet for me, I love mini eggs.

The word tiffin originates from the British India meaning a light meal coming from the old English tiffing as in to take a little drink or sip. Oop North it also relates to a refrigerator cake.



This cake is based on my Malteser cake and the basic recipe can be easily adapted to add different fillings. It's really easy for kids to make, so much so we'll be making a similar cake in Cookery Club, and can be prepared in 5 minutes. Julia @ A Slice of Cherry Pie is hosting her Easter Cake Bake again this year and I've submitted my Mini Egg Tiffin.

Mini Egg Tiffin
Fills 1 x 1lb tin

85g butter
2 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp cocoa
170g digestives, crushed (I usually blitz them in a food processor)
170g mini eggs, lightly crushed
30g mini eggs, left whole

1) Gently melt butter and golden syrup in large pan. Stir in cocoa, digestives and crushed mini eggs.

2) Line a 1lb loaf tin with cling film. Press mixture into tin then press the whole mini eggs into the top. Refrigerate until set.

Coffee Creams - mk1

After making custard creams last year it has always been my intention to adapt the recipe to make the long-gone biscuit Coffee Cream.

Coffee Creams were the biscuits that could only ever be found in the festive Foxs (or was it Jacobs) biscuit tins given to you by Grandma for Christmas. As I love anything coffee flavoured I always snaffled them up, but not before I had sampled all the other biscuits (especially the posh Jammy Dodgers) first. As any coffee lover will tell you, coffee flavoured sweets/biscuits/cakes are not loved by everyone and are more often than not left till last. This is when us coffee lovers swoop and have our last coffee hit.

Now after a bit of experimentation I admit I've sorted the icing, but haven't got the biscuit dough quite right and no I know they don't look like the originals. The biscuits are delicious in their own right, but don't taste exactly like the hallowed Coffee Creams. Although I put coffee in the biscuit dough you can't taste it. I'm going to work on the recipe and try and get it closer to the flavour I remember. I also need to work on extracting a stronger coffee extract. Any tips?

Coffee Creams
Makes 8 coffee cream sandwiches

For the biscuits
175g/6oz plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
100g unsalted butter, cubed
3 tbsp caster sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp strong coffee

For the coffee cream
100g icing sugar
50g unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp strong coffee

1) Preheat oven to 180oc (160oc fan). For the biscuits mix flour and baking powder. Add butter and rub until you get a crumble like texture. Beat coffee into egg in separate cup. Add sugar then gradually beat in egg/coffee mix (you may not need all the egg) until you have a soft dough. Wrap dough in clingfilm and rest in fridge for 20 min.

2) Roll dough to around 4mm and use cutter to cut out round. Place on lined baking tray and bake for 15 min. Cool on rack before sandwiching them.

3) To make coffee cream, beat together icing sugar and butter until you have a cream. Add coffee and beat again until you have a smooth coffee cream.

4) Sandwich each biscuit with about 1 tsp of coffee cream.