Hands up, who likes biscuits? Or should I say, hands up who doesn’t like biscuits? There is a time and place for cookies; and I know a great many people that love a good chewy American styled cookie. But what about the humble biscuit? I am in the camp of “I buy these often so I can have one or two, but will end up eating the whole pack in one go and then complain about being out of shape”, but I rarely actually make them, opting normal for the aforementioned cookies., like the Americanised man I claim not to be. However who can not want to make and eat something that looks like a swiss roll, but is actually a biscuit? Chocolate Swirl cookies look good, aren’t hard to make and taste even better. Kinda like shortbread but with a chocolatey extra.
The swirl is easy to make, it’s a simple log and roll situation, but you don’t have to tell the people you serve these to that; “Oh my god it takes hours individually twirling each biscuit to get it precisey how it should be”, you say as your friends gasp audibly with mouths open and amazement in their eyes.
Going back to singing the praises of biscuits, you can’t quite beat a biscuit on a rainy day (it’s tipping it down outside, and to think it was nice enough for a picnic yesterday) dipped in either a cup of tea or coffee. Today’s rain has been the perfect excuse for me to try out my new coffee machine (which are currently on offer at Lidl for pretty cheap), while I try and perfect my milk steaming and obviousy have to dunk a biscuit into every practise cup… It’s a tough life, right?
- 250g Unsated Butter, room temperature
- 330g Caster Sugar
- 2 eggs, medium
- 450g plain flour, sifted
- 1tsp baking powder
- 3tsp cocoa powder
- Cream together the butter and the sugar until light and fuffy.
- Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until well combined. Add in the vanilla essence and slowly mix in the flour and baking powder until the dough has fully formed.
- Split the dough in half, I did this using the scales to make sure the halves are as even as possible), and then mix the cocoa powder into one of the halves.
- Roll each of the halves out between two sheets of greaseproof paper until they are both rectangles about 1cm thick and roughly the same size/shape.
- Place the vanilla layer on top of the chocolate layer, trim off the rough edges, and roll together from a long edge with the chocolate layer as the outside. Keep this wrapped in greaseproof paper and transfer to the fridge for 30 minutes.
- While the dough is chilling, preheat the oven to 180°C(160°C fan assisted), and prepare a baking sheet with baking parchment.
- Once the dough has chilled, trim the ends off and mark out 30 biscuits along the length of the log. Using a sharp blade, divide it up into 30 even biscuits.
- Space out on the baking sheet and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until cooked.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly on the tray before transferring to a wire rack.
Ah these look great! Last time I tried making swirly biscuits they all got a bit squished when I tried to slice my log – the perfectly round pinwheels in my mind were nowhere to be seen!
Mine did too! The ones I made earlier in the week actually worked better dammit! I am determined to perfect them though.