Dished Up: Chocolate Malt Biscuits

I made some malt loaf recently. The aim was to make something that I'm not that keen on so that I wouldn't be tempted to eat it. Unfortunately it turned out that my family weren't that keen on eating it either (I did find some kind friends who helpfully finished it and assured me that it was in fact nice malt loaf). Nonetheless I was left with most of a jar of malt extract, a curious substance that I bought from a health shop that in form is very like runny honey and in smell is unsurprisingly reminiscent of malteasers. I figured if I substituted malt for honey in a recipe I could use the extract. Honey can be used in many things but I didn't think that 'Malt and Mustard Chicken' would be too much of a hit so I pulled out an old faithful cook book to see what honey biscuit recipes I could find. Well you could knock me down with a feather but the old faithful had a recipe for Malt Biscuits! Naturally I didn't leave the recipe completely untouched but the basic ingredients are the same.

The original recipe is from Australian Women's weekly Big Book of Beautiful Biscuits and makes around 45. If half of this is enough then you can freeze some of the dough after step 4. When you want to make the rest, get the dough out and leave at room temperature until you can slice it and then complete the rest of the steps.

The whole process including chilling can be done in an hour if you are pretty speedy and use the freezer. If you like more leisurely baking then give your self at least on hour and a half although hands on time is a lot less than this.

What you need:
125g Butter
110g Caster Sugar
1 egg
2 Tbsp Golden Syrup
2 tbsp Malt extract
375g Plain Flour
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
1 1/2 tsp Cream of tartar
200g Plain Chocolate

What you do:
1. Beat the butter, sugar and egg in a freestanding mixer until smooth. Add the syrup and the extract and mix until combined.
2. Sift in the dry ingredients and beat until the mixture comes together as a soft dough.
3. Roll some clingfilm out across your work surface and place the dough on top.
4. Shape the dough into a long sausage (or two shorter ones) about 5cm in diameter, wrap the film around it and place it in the fridge for 30minutes or the freezer for 15minutes. (The dough is very sticky so you may find it useful to do some of the shaping when the film is already wrapped around the dough).
5. While the dough is chilling heat the oven to 160 celius and line some baking trays with non stick paper.
6. Take the chilled dough out the fridge, cut the sausage into 0.5cm slices and place them onto the prepared trays a couple of cm apart. Bake for 16 minutes or until golden brown. Leave to cool on the trays.
7. When the biscuits have completely cooled melt the chocolate gently and dip half the front of each biscuit into the chocolate. Place the biscuit back on the non-stick tray and leave to set.

So far these are going down a lot better than the malt loaf. Cassie xx

Chocolate Fudge Icing Recipe (for Extra Indulgent Brownies)

This week I'm all about the sweet treats. I was supposed to be taking a savoury snack with me out last night but I just needed something sweet to help me endure the rain. I made some brownies and they were looking OK:

Normally I would be really pleased to take these with me and to eat them but I wanted something with a bit more wow factor. You can find the recipe for these brownies in an Usborne Children's recipe book but any brownies would work for this. The recipe I am sharing is for the icing (adapted from this recipe here). You can also enjoy this icing on cakes (or straight from a spoon!) and it goes on nice and smoothly so it always looks great even if you can't normally make your icing look smooth.

What You Will Need:
Brownies
55g Butter
3tbsp milk
200g icing sugar (sifted)
30g cocoa powder
Strawberries (half a strawberry for each brownie)

What To Do:
1. Mix all the ingredients together in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. After a few minutes the mixture will turn smooth and glossy. Remove the bowl from the heat.
2. When the icing has cooled slightly, add about 1 tablespoon of icing to the top of each brownie, covering the tops and spreading it into the corner. It's ok if it starts to pour over the edges a little but don't cover the edges over completely.
3. Hull your strawberries and cut then in half. When the icing is mostly cool and starting to set pop half a strawberry on top.

And don't they look delicious? In fact they don't just look delicious they really taste it too. Nom nom nom. Zoe x

Chocolate Hearts for Valentines

Valentines isn't a big deal in our house, its something we like to acknowledge and use as an opportunity to spend some time with one another. So something handmade and quick is (for me) the perfect gift for Valentines day. These heart chocolates are so easy that they barely need any explanation.

Simply melt some chocolate, I used white chocolate. When it has melted spoon a blob onto some greaseproof paper on a baking tray and spread it out into little hearts. Then pour over some sprinkles, any colour will do and you don't have to be too precise. Once every heart has a few sprinkles on pick up your tray and roll it around a little to get the extra sprinkles to stick to the edges of your hearts. This uses up your extra sprinkles and makes the heart shapes really defined. Leave your tray for about 30 mins and you're done. 

So easy and so yummy. There is definitely still enough time for you to do this one for your Valentine too. Zoe x