Since staying with Charles in Sweden for so long, I got pretty good at making biscuits. Cakes were kind of difficult and took too long to eat, so biscuits were perfect. Despite using the same recipe every time, the biscuits always came out different, but delicious. I don’t want Charles to go without this treat, so I’ve made a walkthrough for him.
In Sweden I found a delicious chocolate bar called “Non Stop” which was a milk chocolate bar with smarties through it. Later I figured out that the smarties are what’s called Non-Stop, and the chocolate company just mixes it together. Anyhow I loved Non-Stop chocolate. In Sweden I added the Non-Stop smarties to the biscuits. You can also use glacé cherries, chocolate buds, or chopped nuts to your taste. In the photos there’s chocolate buds instead of Non-Stop, because I’m not in Sweden anymore!
Ingredients:
125g butter or margarine (about two tablespoons full). Butter makes the mixture more firm, with Margerine you need more flour.
2/3 cup sugar – any type is fine, but I prefer brown for maximum deliciousness
1 tablespoon vanilla sugar OR a splash of vanilla essence
1 generous cup plain flour mixed with 1 teaspoon baking powder OR 1 generous cup Self-Raising flour
1 egg
Non Stop (or whatever)
Method
1. Pre-heat oven to 180C
2. Prepare baking trays. Either use clean baking trays or line a tray with foil. You don’t need to grease the tray because there is butter in the biscuits.
3. Melt butter in saucepan. Swirl it around to make sure it’s all melted.
4. Take butter off the heat, add sugar, and stir in.
5. Cool mixture for a minute and then stir in the egg and vanilla essence. I sometimes cool it by placing it in a sink of cold water.
6. Add flour and mix. Add more flour if it is too runny – it should hold its shape. Test for taste and add sugar if necessary.
7. Add some non-stop to the mixture and stir in. Instead of mixing in the chocolates, you can also arrange them on top of the uncooked biscuits in fun designs.
8. Using a teaspoon, ladle dollops of mixture onto baking trays – not too close together! Makes around 20 biscuits.
This is for me:
9. Remove from oven when they look golden brown and have risen – takes about 10 – 15 minutes depending on the oven. Leave to cool for a bit. Use a spatula to get them off the tray. They should easily come away from the tray when they’re cool. Careful of getting hot chocolate on your fingers!
Too much sugar will cause the biscuits to spread out all over the baking tray and become brittle when cool. However, this can ALSO be delicious and fun, so no problem. These ones didn’t spread much at all!
Yum yum!
Christina Hopgood 