AUGUST 2021
It’s about time we got the chocolate recipes out.
We need to feel good, so even just the smell of warm chewy bickies, or a proper chocolate cake will give me reason to smile.
There’s a well used and travelled biscuit recipe I make in bulk and keep ready to go in the freezer.
It’s so easy, and I’m sure most of this is in your pantry, or easy to find at the shops.
This biscuit mix makes a lot. Before baking, you can divide into 2, 3, 4 or 5 lots to variations of flavour.
Ingredients
500 g butter or margerine at room temperature.
1/2 cup caster sugar
395 g NESTLE Sweetened Condensed Milk
5 cups self-raising flour sifted
Cream the butter and sugar till fluffy.
Pour in the whole can of condensed milk, then gently fold in the flour cup by cup.
Mix till it just comes together.
And for varieties, try
Rolling balls in 2 tablespoons cinnamon & sugar before baking.
Add ½ cup of tiny chocolate chips
Make an indent with a wooden spoon and add ½ a teaspoon of jam
Add 2 tablespoons of peanut butter and 1 tablespoon of brown sugar.
Roll in hundreds and thousands for fairy bickies.
Onto greased trays, chill first before baking. This stops the over spreading
These bickies take around 12 to 15 minutes to bake. Oven temperature at 170 degrees.
For a chocolate cake, most recipes are similar, I like the not so rich kind so I can have a bigger piece of cake.
There’s a few variations to add a special something extra.
Try one or two of these the next time you are baking cakes.
The zest of one orange.
A teaspoon of cinnamon.
A tablespoon of powdered chai mix.
Yoghurt is a brilliant tenderiser of cakes. Swap the milk/water component for yoghurt or buttermilk.
A whole scraped out vanilla bean. (Pop the empty pod into your sugar jar).
Swap a cup of flour for almond meal for extra protein.
Add a pinch of flaky sea salt.
If packet mix is your go to, to give it more oopmh,
Add an extra egg to the mix, use butter instead of oil, and add a couple of tablespoons of natural yoghurt.
Raisins are fantastic smugglers of fortified wines.
A cup of Raisins with a cup of oloroso sherry sitting in a jar keeps very well in the fridge.
Add a spoonful of this to your chocolate cake mix for decadence. Just quietly, a spoonful of this over ice cream is sublime as well.