I am not going to start the whole biscuit vs. cookie debate nonsense again, as God only knows it was painful enough last time, but I AM going to give you a very, very good recipe that I found by mistake the other day in a Quebec 'homelady' magazine called Coup de Pouce. Oddly they haven't got the recipe on the site, so here you are: here is a translation done by me. I am only doing this because I think everyone should eat these: it's the salty-sweet thing. Dirty. Dirty good. Uh-huh. The ingredients and the basic method are accurate even if the translation is not super-elegant, and I have been kind enough to put measurements in both cups (i.e. North American) and grams (i.e., Europe - I do not know about for e.g. Australia).
Salty-sweet almond and chocolate biscuits
1/2 cup (125g) ground almonds
1/2 cup (125g) toasted sliced almonds
6 tablespoons (180g) soft butter
1/2 cup (125g) sugar (general, white)
1/2 cup (125g) brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3 tablespoons of milk
1 1/4 cups (310g) plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 teaspoon salt - 'fleur de sel' if you have it, or Maldon - the big stuff, NOT cooking salt
1 cup (250g) semi-sweet chocolate chips (I use good dark chocolate and chop it up with a big knife, chop chop)
Pre-heat your oven to 350F (180C).
Butter two baking sheets or put a bit of greaseproof/baking paper on it (not wax paper, Americans!!). (I used non-stick baking sheets and it's fine).
Get out your KitchenAid or similar. I am sure you can do it by hand but it will be less easy, yeah?
Beat together the butter and sugars until well combined and pale. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition; fold in the vanilla and milk.
In another bowl, mix lightly together the ground almonds, flour, bicarb, baking powder and salt.
Once combined, add them gently to the butter and sugar mixture until well combined. Stir in the chocolate chips and flaked almonds gently by hand.
Dollop teaspoons of mixture on the tray about 2 inches apart. Cook for 8-10 minutes, turning the tray round halfway through, until they are lightly golden, like the muzzle of a favourite golden retriever.
Put the trays on a cooling rack for 5 minutes, then take the biscuits off and leave them on the rack to cool down completely. Stuff them down your gaping maw making the noises of a hungry cat having a go at the kitty crunch.
Makes about 30 biscuits.
North Americans do things like drink glasses of milk with cookies (amazing!!!), but these are good at all times in all ways, e.g. with tea, in the bath, for breakfast, skating, walking to work, at the gym and before a Weight Watchers weigh-in.
10 comments:
I'm assuming all that plain flour, bicarb and baking powder business can just be replaced with good old self-raising flour?
That reads as if it will be irresistibly delicious, so I won't risk making them. But thank you for the recipe, which I will pass on to a friend whose figure I'm secretly jealous of.
Well Mrs Jones, I do not know. I think so, yes. It is not like in the England where there is lots of self-raising flour everywhere in gigantic drifts. But do not blame me if it goes wrong. No. Do not. (By the way they don't puff up much - i.e. they don't 'raise' that much.)
Make them for your friend and eat one before you give her the tin, Z. You know it!
I can taste those damn biscuits in my brain already, dammit woman. I can not eat just one. You know it.
When all this christmas nonsense is out of the way, I shall make these biscuits with self raising flour and report back, but I've done all my xmas food shopping this morning and I'll be buggered if I'm going back out into that ruck again just to get sliced almonds.....
NB - for the befuddled North Americans baking paper=parchment paper. Also a Silpat should work beeyewtifully.
Anyone wishing to make gingerbread cookie-biscuits might want to look at this: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Gingerbread-Snowflakes-107445
It foams up when the baking soda is added (so I think self-raising is out for this one) and you don't have to mess about with chilling it AND it's like playing with lovely warm fragrant clay. Tastes a'right too but that's hardly the point.
Would you believe further translation into Canadiaian is required? YES!
vanilla essence = vanilla extract?
bicarbonate of soda = baking soda?
big salt?
I do not bake often. Can you tell? Does my butt look big in this pan?
Thank you for helping with these clarifications! You are right ...
Yes! Vanilla extract!
Yes! Baking soda!
Big salt = i.e. salt with big crystals, not the fine cooking salt.
Hoorah!
Hell's bells. They sound yummy.
Nuts with chocolate in biscuits: excellent combination.
Being tremendously clever, we Australians can do both cups and grams. Plus pounds and ounces, for the old ones.
Hello Miss Mohair. What makes them SOOOBLIIME is the salt. Strange but true. It is flavouring, not ingredient, if you know whaddamean. Australians are indeed tremendously clever, which is why they live in a country where it is hot in the winter. Fact!
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