Big Biscuit Love

For a girl who, as a rule, doesn't really love biscuits, this weekend was an eye-opener. Yes, you are right in thinking that I bake and ice an awful lot of biscuits for someone who isn't too fond of them. I am an equal opportunity baker though and while I will take a cake or piece of chocolate over a biscuit any day, I am well aware that there are veritable hordes of biscuit lovers out there, for whom nothing else will do. I do love baking them, mind you - biscuit and cookie dough is quick to make and of course, being small means that they bake in no time at all.

You might think that the use of 'biscuit' vs. 'cookie' is simple word-play - and to an extent it is, in that an American would use cookie to describe our biscuits and vice versa - but there is a generally accepted technical difference (not always adhered to). Usually, biscuits are short and crisp (using no raising agent), compared with the softer, chewier texture of a cookie (which uses either baking powder or egg in the recipe). This is why a biscuit dough is often easier to roll and cut into shapes, which hold well during baking. A cookie dough, on the other hand, will usually spread and rise once it hits the heat of the oven - some of the doughs are quite soft and sticky, so you simply drop a ball or scoop of dough onto the baking tray and either press it lightly or just leave it to form its own shape as it bakes. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule and occasions when biscuit and cookie collide, so I'm never too pernickety about which word is used.

Getting back to my biscuity weekend, the cookie in the photo is one the few exceptions to my 'I don't love biscuits' stance. It's a recipe I have been baking for years (now that I think of it, I do believe this was the recipe that eased my coming-out to work colleagues - a box of these chocolate and peanut-butter cookies quickly outed my closet baker). They are really easy to make and a satisfying combination of crispy edge, slightly soft / chewy middle, salty peanut-butter, melting dark chocolate chips and the crunch of roughly chopped peanuts. I would be no friend at all if I didn't share this particular recipe, so I have typed it out below. And before you accuse me of a swift about-turn on my Choc/PB baking ban, these were a treat baked by No.1 Sister and presented with a cup of coffee when I went to visit on Saturday. Frankly, it would have been rude to say no and I am nothing if not a stickler for etiquette. Delicious.

From cookie to biscuit in less than 24 hours - yesterday I made a batch of gingerbread men and camels in preparation for the Christmas run (they now sit happily in the freezer, waiting patiently until it's time to be baked to order). Naturally, I baked a couple of off-cuts to taste-test the batch (one of the terrible trials of a baker's life). Again, delicious. But there was something even better. As an experiment, I decided to do a small, trial batch of chocolate gingerbread biscuits (substituting a small amount of cocoa for flour). I wasn't entirely sure how this would work - Would the cocoa overwhelm the gingerbread? Improve it? Chocolatey enough or just a background note in a regular gingerbread biscuit? No.3 Sister, who adores a ginger biscuit, would tell me not to mess with a good thing. She would see this as Dr Frankenstein making mischief in the lab and creating a monster hybrid - she's not a fan of Evil Chocolate (her words, not mine obviously). But as for me, I just had to give it go. The concept was too fabulous not to try (recipe below if you'd like a go too).

Oh Lord. The smell of Christmas and chocolate wafting from the oven was almost enough to make me swoon. As for the taste - words fail me, but 'Yum!' will do for now. This one is a keeper. It's not just the pairing of two of nature's firm friends - chocolate and ginger. The orange zest in the recipe (another fabulous flavour partner for chocolate) and the warmth of the background spices (cinnamon and a hint of nutmeg and cloves) all join together in happy matrimony with the cocoa and ginger. Whether it's an official polygamous marriage or just a big ol' hippy love-in, this biscuit is here to stay.
 

Choc Chunk Peanut-Butter Cookies

This recipe came from the Good Food magazine many years ago and was so good in its original form that I still make it exactly as it was written, with no tweaks!

85g peanuts
175g chocolate or choc chips (I use dark choc, at least 70%, but feel free to go lighter if you prefer)
85g crunchy peanut butter
175g butter, softened
175g light muscovado sugar
300g self-raising flour
2 tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 180C. Roughly chop the chocolate (if you're not using choc chips) and two thirds of the peanuts. In a bowl, beat together the peanut-butter, butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then stir in the flour and milk with a wooden spoon and mix well. Add the chopped chocolate and peanuts and stir in with a spoon. Bring the mixture together with your hands and divide into 18 equal portions. Roughly shape each portion of dough into a ball with your hands and place onto a lined baking sheet. Lightly flatten each cookie with the prongs of a fork then sprinkle a few of the remaining peanuts on the top. Bake for 12-15 mins until the cookies are pale golden around the edges, but still feel slightly soft in the centre. Leave them to cool in the tray for a few mins then transfer to a wire rack.

These will keep for a week in an airtight container or you can freeze them (just refresh in a hot oven for a few minutes after defrosting). Alternatively, the pre-baked mixture can be frozen either as a whole or in little cookie balls to bake when it suits you.


Gingerbread Biscuits

To make the very delicious chocolate version of these, simply replace 35g of plain flour with cocoa.

50g soft dark brown sugar
25g caster sugar
50g golden syrup
25g black treacle
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
Tiny pinch of ground cloves
Pinch of ground nutmeg
Zest of half an orange
95g butter
225g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Sift the flour and bicarb of soda together. Put the sugar, golden syrup, treacle, butter, spices and orange zest into a saucepan over a medium heat until it's all melted together. Remove from the heat and add the sieved flour mix, stirring until a soft dough is formed. Tip the dough out onto a sheet of clingfilm. Place another sheet on top and flatten the dough out (the dough is quite hard to roll out when it first comes out of the fridge, so flattening it out a bit now means less hard work later!). Wrap the clingfilm securely around the edges and put in the fridge to rest for an hour / overnight.

To bake the biscuits, preheat the oven to 180C. Roll out the dough to a thickness of 2mm-5mm, depending on how thick you like your biscuits (I prefer the more substantial 5mm myself, as they are less fragile). Cut out your shapes using whatever cutter you like and place onto lined baking trays. Bake for 8-10 mins for the thinner biscuits and 18-20 mins for the thicker ones - you'll know when they're ready if the centre of the biscuit feels stiff or firm but not hard. The edges shouldn't be too dark, otherwise the biscuits will be brittle and bitter. This mixture should make about 15 biscuits (if you're using a regular-sized gingerbread man cutter, about 9cm tall). Like all biscuits, these keep well in an airtight box for at least a week, if not longer.