Cafe Lula

These are chocolatey and melty-ey, especially in this weather (thanks for the help with the introduction, Mum!). They take about five minutes to throw together (after an initial panic about the dough never turning into dough) and twelve minutes to cook. Then you can cover them in melted chocolate and proceed to stuff your face, growling at anyone who attempts to approach the plate of biscuits.

The first time I made these, I didn’t believe that the ingredients would ever come together to form a dough. I was mixing and mixing (for about  two minutes, but my attention span is short) and nothing seemed to be happening. It looked like this:

But then suddenly, after deciding the recipe must be wrong and they were never going to work, it started to come together, and ended up looking like this:

Hurray! Once this has happened, you tear off chunks, roll them into balls and squish them to the size and shape you prefer.

Bake them until they look…

Like this! Then drizzle  (or splodge, if you’re like me and not very good at drizzling) them with melted chocolate…

Like this! Yum yum yum.

Chocolate melts

From Baking Magic by Kate Shirazi

Makes about 10 (this will vary depending on the size you choose)

Ingredients:

125g/4.5 oz softened

50g/2 oz icing sugar

50g/2 oz cornflour (cornstarch)

25g/1 oz cocoa powder

100g/4 oz plain (all-purpose) flour

100g/4 oz dark or milk chocolate

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line 2 baking sheets with greaseproof paper.

Beat the butter in a large bowl until nice and soft and then sift in all the other ingredients except the chocolate (I’m not sure chocolate would sift that well, and you don’t want to add it yet anyway!).

Mix together with your hands until it forms a smooth dough. Tear off chunks, roll them into balls and then squish them into biscuits the size and shape that you prefer. Place them on the baking sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool the biscuits on the baking trays.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water. When the chocolate has melted, drizzle it over the biscuits. The baking paper will handily catch any chocolate which misses the biscuits, and later you can scrape it off and eat it with a spoon 😀

Eat the biscuits when the chocolate has set, or before if you just can’t wait.