Holiday season is the time for sharing and Peta of Peta Eats is sharing a dozen cookies, some classics and some of her own, from all over the world with us.
Life has been a massive pain in the derriere in terms of my baking this term.
Basically, I'm back at university and I have baked ONCE. That was these cookies, when I went home for a weekend to visit my family and my boyfriend... I will admit right here and now that I only did half of my Daring Baker's challenge this month, and my Mum did the other half! I couldn't do last month's challenge because I had essay deadlines and practical writeups and cycle training and... well, what is one person going to do with an entire Mille Feuille? Seriously?
Well, eat it is the obvious answer. But that would be bad. And I actually would do it because I hate wasting food, especially stuff I've gone to the effort of baking. So no Mille Feuille for Pipsqueak if I don't want to have to rename this blog to "Gigantosaur Blob's Noms".
The month before was Empanada Gallega, which sounded amazing but again, I had no time. The month before that was Pate a Choux swans. I really wanted to do this but my month was consumed by my Grandparents 3 tier Golden Wedding Anniversary cake. I still haven't had chance to even write the blog post to accompany the photos! The swans would have been perfect for the party but I'm not known for being that artistic and I think rather than looking like swans they might have ended up looking like a bunch of greater Adjutants instead... or hippos.
So, anyway, I chose to do the Chocolate sables, and Mum made her famed (in our household) chocolate biscuit cake.
NOTE: Our house has been flooded with all this terrible weather we've been having. I'm writing this post back at university still so I haven't seen the damage first hand, but my family are now in a hotel and we'll be moving into rental accommodation soon, so this is the last post from my kitchen as I knew it for the past 7 years.
Chocolate sables
Warning: grating chocolate for half an hour is NOT FUN.
These were nice. Really quite nice, actually. They went very quickly.
But I do value my time. I could have been looking cats on the internet in that half an hour. Therefore, anything with grated frozen chocolate is being given a wide berth by yours truly in the future. No matter how tasty the darn things are...
Get the recipe here.
Pipsqueak's Mum's Chocolate Biscuit Cake
This, on the other hand, is a family favourite. It uses up any old biscuits, is really quick and easy to make (and a good way to vent your frustration because you get to attack biscuits with a massive rolling pin), and I think it might actually get my boyfriend baking because at the moment he can only get it at my house and this is not frequent enough...
The recipe originally came from our very old Sainsbury's baking book, which has some great staple bakes in. We've modified this recipe a fair bit over the years, but it's versatile, and you can tailor it to your own tastes. I posted a different chocolate biscuit cake recipe on here before but it was a momentary dalliance. I love you, Mum's chocolate biscuit cake. You're the recipe for me!
p.s. Mum made it with malted milks this time. I nearly died from the happiness overload this gave me (weirdly, I hate ovaltine). Our standard is basically digestives if we're buying in, but anything in the cupboard works a treat!
Original recipe
This is the recipe as it appears in the Sainsbury's baking book. I almost uploaded the photo that Mum sent me of the recipe, but the book is in quite a state after being used a lot for as long as I can remember...
Biscuit cake
125g (4oz) margarine
50g (2oz) caster sugar
2 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp milk
2 tbsp drinking chocolate
1 tbsp cocoa
250g (8oz) digestive biscuits, crushed
50g (2oz) cake crumbs
50g (2oz) glace cherries, chopped
50g (2oz) raisins
Chocolate icing
125g (4oz) plain chocolate
15g (1/2oz) butter
1. Place the margarine, sugar, syrup and milk in a pan and heat gently
2. Add the drinking chocolate, cocoa and half the biscuits and mix well
3. Add the remaining ingredients and stir until throughly mixed
4. Press into a 20cm (8 inch) sandwich tin
5. Chill in the refrigerator until set, then remove from the tin
6. To make the icing, melt the chocolate and butter in a small bowl over a pan of hot water and mix well
7. Spread over the biscuit mixture and allow to set, then cut into wedges
MAKES ONE 20CM (8 INCH) ROUND
Biscuit cake
125g (4oz) margarine
50g (2oz) caster sugar
2 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp milk
2 tbsp drinking chocolate
1 tbsp cocoa
250g (8oz) digestive biscuits, crushed
50g (2oz) cake crumbs
50g (2oz) glace cherries, chopped
50g (2oz) raisins
Chocolate icing
125g (4oz) plain chocolate
15g (1/2oz) butter
1. Place the margarine, sugar, syrup and milk in a pan and heat gently
2. Add the drinking chocolate, cocoa and half the biscuits and mix well
3. Add the remaining ingredients and stir until throughly mixed
4. Press into a 20cm (8 inch) sandwich tin
5. Chill in the refrigerator until set, then remove from the tin
6. To make the icing, melt the chocolate and butter in a small bowl over a pan of hot water and mix well
7. Spread over the biscuit mixture and allow to set, then cut into wedges
MAKES ONE 20CM (8 INCH) ROUND
Pipqueak's Mum's recipe
Coming soon...
