dark, smoky and melting - Nigella Lawson
Because, you know, you can never have too much chocolate, I present you with Granny Boyd's Biscuits. Deeeelicious on their own, or with a cup of tea. Or, as Nigella suggests, with ice-cream (she certainly has a thing for the biscuits and ice-cream trick!)
(I know my teapot is nude. I need to make a cosy...)The verdict
Unusual or substituted ingredients: None - these are quite possibly the easiest biscuits you can make - a stick of butter, castor sugar, self-raising flour and just a leeetle bit of cocoa - whenever I make biscuits with cocoa, I am always surprised at how dark the mixture goes with so little cocoa. I use Dutch cocoa in my baking, but you could certainly get away with the more economical common garden variety!
Special utensils or bakeware: None. The most hi-tech this recipe gets is to suggest squishing them with the back of a fork once you've rolled the mix into walnut sized balls!When I was a child helping my mother make biscuits, squishing the backs of the butter snaps with a fork was always my job. And let's face, while I don't have the butter snap recipe, I suspect these are exactly the same, except for the addition of the cocoa - which does take them above the realm of the ordinary biscuit!
Repeatability: I would make these again - an easy chocolate biscuit recipe. Next time I might put in a touch of peppermint essence - oooh home made mint slice biscuits!Sauciness: I think I may have slightly overcooked my biscuits - it is so hard to tell when they are done, because they are so dark (none of that "cook until golden brown" stuff for these babies) as they turned out just a tad crumbly for my liking. I think the saucy comes in if you serve with ice-cream!
Overall pleasure level: Due to the crumbliness, I have to mark these down a little - so a 7. They keep well, are delicious warm (aren't all biscuits!) and are very versatile! And for the observant - you'll note this biscuit served as the model:
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