Crumbly citrus and almond biscuits with chocolate trellis
A light chewy biscuit criss-crossed with milk chocolate
100 g unsalted butter, softened
100 g ground almonds
100 g golden caster sugar
50 g plain flour
50 g self raising flour
zest of lemon or lime or orange
5 teasp chopped mixed peel
50 g of whatever chocolate you fancy
Crumbly citrus and almond biscuits with chocolate trellis
Makes about 20 biscuits
Beat butter, sugar and ground almonds together. Sift in the flours and blend (hand whisk is fine) until the mixture starts to come together. Now finish bringing it together with your hands.
With floured hands pinch off pieces of the dough (bigger than a cherry, smaller than a walnut shell) and roll them into a ball. Place, well spaced, on the baking sheets.
Bake in oven preheated to 180 degrees C/160 degrees C for a fan oven; 350 degrees F/Gas Mark 4 for about 15 minutes until risen, cracked and pale golden. Transfer to a rack to cool.
Melt chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Somehow dribble it over the biscuits. (I found this difficult, hence the big blobs of chocolate. I thus ended up melting twice as much chocolate as I needed which was wasteful and maddening. Any advice would be very welcome.)
Curiously, these biscuits tasted very like the Ricciarelli I made ages ago, but these have butter to bind the ingredients, whereas ricciarelli use egg whites. So if you’re being careful with calories, go for the ricciarelli. Both biscuits are delicious.
14 Comments
I seem to recall that Lakeland Limited have a little silicone pot for melting chocolate in, which had a lip and therefore might make the dribbling easier…
That sounds worth investigating, thank you, Rachel.
I dip the end of a fork in and flick chocolate from the tines. It works but would not give a neat trellis.
Also I think you will be interested in this group : http://www.magnacartaquilt.co.uk/
They have produced a remarkable series of 8 quilts on the theme of Magna Carta in 6 months which is currently on display as part of the Magna Carta celebrations.
I shall have a go at this – I wasn’t actually seeking to make a trellis.
Thanks for yet more interesting information, Alice. I popped into the British Library last Friday and enjoyed seeing Cornelia Parker’s Magna Carta – the embroidered pictures were very impressive and the more I think about it the more I find her concept of a muliti-hand-embroidered frozen Wikipedia page intellectually appealing.Thanks for alerting me to it.
These sound and look delicious Mary. My suggestion for controlling trails of melted chocolate is to firstly decant the melted chocolate into a disposable icing bag with a small triangle snipped off the end, no need for a piping tip. Alternatively a sturdy freezer bag, again with a small corner snipped off works quite well, though is slightly more awkward to use. This will ensure that your chocolate trails are a more uniform width.
When piping the chocolate, it is probably easiest to lay the biscuits on rows on a sheet of grease proof paper. If you start your chocolate trail so that the first ‘blob’ lands on the grease proof paper beside the first biscuit, rather than actually on the biscuit, the lines will look more even, as you then carry on moving your hand in a smooth line across the biscuits, then back and forth as you wish. You should then end up with rows of chocolate biscuits with lines/grids of evenly thick chocolate trails, and no obvious ‘blob’ start point on any one biscuit. You will have a little wasted chocolate depending on now closely arranged your rows of biscuits are, but not too much, and the grease proof paper can then just be thrown away. I don’t know if I have explained this very well, hope you have not fallen asleep during this laborious description! X
I knew I could rely on you for a helpful comment Penny. Thank you. I’m sure I wold snip too big a hole and would then panic, but I shall try this and see if I can master the technique. (How about making a small video for your blog to demonstrate? That would be really useful.)
Hmm, I have no idea how to do that but could perhaps challenge myself to find out how. I’m sure my sons would both advise on the technical aspects, it might be fun. Thank you for the suggestion Mary! X
I think you should a) challenge yourself to do this; b)make full use of having technically savvy children and c) have fun doing this with them. You could make some very helpful baking vimeos for your blog which I’m sure would do well on YouTube.
Sorry, just another quick thought (once I start giving advice, I can’t stop myself!) I do quite a lot of baking, and have melted more bars of chocolate for baking and decorating over the years than I can count. I have tried chocolate from every possible shop and supermarket, from Green and Blacks, to 70%cocoa solids Organic, to Lindt, to Asda’s own brand. I found the best chocolate for baking comes from Lidl. It is called Fin Car, and comes in milk, plain and white. It melts very evenly and well, and has an excellent flavour. It has the added advantage of being extremely competitively priced. I have been using it for some years now, and really wouldn’t consider using any other brand. Ok that’s it, I’ll be quiet now! X
Yet more useful information! Unfortunately we don’t have a Lidl particularly near, although I do know some foodie parishioners who go regularly and who, like you, have worked out what Lidl do best. At Christmas they always give us a wonderful selection of all sorts of delicious treats and are keen to tell us they came from Lidl. I shall pass the recommendation for Fin Car on to them and I won’t be at all surprised if they say they’ve been buying it for years. Please don’t feel the need to be quiet.
If you use a plastic bag (ziploc type) that is rather thick, you can melt the chocolate in that, then snip off a corner with scissors, and use it as a “pastry bag”
Now melting the chocolate in the bag is very clever – no loss as you transfer from bowl to bag to biscuit! Brilliant. Thank you Tzippi.
I like the plate almost as much as I like the uneven blobs.
I thought you might, Penny!