Lorna's Chocolate Brazil Biscuits

I was looking through my massive 1,000 recipe book after rediscovering it a couple of weeks ago in my quest for a scone recipe. It's amazing how many memories can be contained in a recipe book – being reminded of when you made something, events you were catering for or people who ate what you made. Every recipe book I have tells a different story with the pages of most used recipes covered in whatever ingredients are used to make them. At least it makes it easy for me to find my favourite recipes but with all the recipes each book has to only make a few seems a waste. This thought led me to go through all my recipe books in the quest for something new.

One book I use quite a bit was given to me by my good friend Lorna. It’s a Green & Black’s book and there are a few cake recipes I use regularly. Lorna bought me the book when we lived together in Neasden as she had experience my love of baking at university. We lived in the same house in the 3^rd year and while I might only have pasta in the cupboard for dinner I’d always have the ingredients for brownies! Cooking for people was a way of showing we cared and we’d sometimes embark on making epic dinners for all our housemates. Special occasions would normally be the trigger and anything from birthdays, Valentine’s Day or Thanksgiving would see us heading up to Asda in Lorna’s little car.

So while looking through the Green & Black’s book I saw a recipe that had been created by someone called Lorna. This put with the fact that its Lorna’s birthday this week meant that the recipe was an easy choice to try out. It’s an interesting one as the wholemeal flour in these biscuits does make them a bit soft and crumbly, which they are mean to be. The batter basically acts as a vehicle for nuts and chocolate which is never a bad thing. I’m sad to say though that there might not be any for Lorna to sample herself when I see her on Saturday but I’m hoping a glass of champagne might make up for it!

Ingredients

75g butter
60g caster sugar
1 large egg
175g wholemeal self-raising flour (I couldn't find self-raising so bought plain wholemeal and added 3 tsp of baking piece to the flour and sifted it through three times. It seems to have worked out)
½ tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tbsp milk
80g dark chocolate
80g milk chocolate
50g Brazil nuts (these are expensive so I recommend going to Holland & Barrett and buying their broken ones which are better value)
Pinch of salt

1.   Preheat the oven to 180

2.   Chop up the chocolate and Brazil nuts into chunky pieces. See that's why buying broken ones makes sense as you're not using them whole.

3.   Cream the butter and sugar together until light in colour. (My electric whisk broke at this point meaning I had to jam a knife in the top to stop and start it so I'm going to admit to just about getting there with this bit. I thought that the combination of knife and electrical equipment weren't really meant to go together so minimising the time spent with them together was best).

4.   Mix the flour into the mixture along with the vanilla extract.

5.   Add just enough milk to bind it together and chuck the nuts and chocolate in along with the salt. Mix well with your hand to get everything evenly distributed. If you add too much milk add flour a teaspoon at a time until it becomes less sticky.

6.   Roll out on a floured surface. It probably won't get thinner than about 5mm because of the chucks. Cut out with a 6cm cutter or something approximately that size.

7.   Place on a baking tray and cook for 17-20 minutes. You don't want to over-cook as they can dry out.

Now these see to be the first thing I've baked that taste better cold than hot! I think it’s the wholemeal flour as you can tell you’re eating something that isn’t completely bad for you. Leave them to cool before eating and I'd recommend a glass of milk or cup of tea to go with them.