Sunday, August 03, 2008

Chocolate Biscuits

I have already been a great cookie/biscuit eater. Nowadays I have greater self control - much needed self control with extra pounds that insist on staying with me, like a best friend. However, that does not stop me from recognizing a good recipe when I see one. And I try to treat my friends with them. If I cannot have them I might as well see other people having pleasure. In this spirit I chose this recipe for my good friends Namrita and Prashant who work in the Singapore office but were in the London office for 5 weeks. Elson, who joined their team about 6 months ago, was also in London so he also got a nice treat.

I only made a change to the list of ingredients below. Instead of using plain flour I used 100g brown rice flour and 50g chestnut flour. The biscuits turned out quite lovely and I will be making this recipe again in the near future.

Ingredients:

100g dark chocolate , chopped coarsely

80g butter, chopped

1 cup ( 220g) caster sugar

1 egg beaten slightly

1 cup (150g) plain flour

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

¼ cup(40g) icing sugar

  1. Melt chocolate and butter in a small saucepan over low heat. I tend to wait until it is all quite melted, I then remove it from the heat and the heated saucepan gives enough heat to finish off with the melting process.Transfer mixture to a bow.
  2. Get the caster sugar, plain flour, cocoa and flour, and sieve them into the chocolate mixture. Add the egg, and mix it all well until you reach a firm consistency.
  3. Transfer mixture to the fridge for 15 minutes.
  4. Meanwhile heat the oven – 180oC/160oC oven assisted. Grease and cover baking tray with parchment paperl.
  5. Make little chocolate balls and roll them in the icing sugar. Place the icing sugar covered balls on the baking tray, leaving at least 5 min between each one. Bake for approximately 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let them cool on tray.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful person you are to make these cookies for your friends. They're so lucky. How interesting that you used brown rice flour and chestnut flour. What a unique combination.

Paz

Deborah said...

They are just gorgeous! I've never used rice flour or chestnut flour, but it sounds like such and interesting addition!

Valentina said...

Paz, I love treating my friends. ; o)
I have been experimenting with different flours. It is Béa's influence. I have had some great results.

Deborah, as I mentioned to Paz, I am really into trying different flours. There are so many options.

Poonam said...

The changes you made are such a healthy tweek to the original one! You should call them guilt-free biscuits.

Nora B. said...

Valentina,
I like your idea of substituting with brown rice flour and chestnut flour. These cookies look very tempting....

x Nora