Double chocolate, pecan, pistachio and cranberry biscuits

Normally I do like to write a little back up story for my bakes: a bit of history behind the recipe if it’s based on a historical or traditional food, how I came to create it or how I made it. This recipe needs no such introduction, it’s simply the best best cookie-style biscuit recipe I’ve made. So far anyway.

Notes

• Makes about 22 – 24 biscuits, each about 5 cm diameter.
• Chill the biscuits before you bake them to ensure they stay thick and slightly crunchy. If you pop them in the oven straight after making they will flatten, giving you a very different biscuit altogether (still highly edible but thin and crispier).
• Also use your choice of milk, dark or white chocolate for covering. I don’t hold much patience with those who specify dark at specific cocoa solids percentages for covering or for most ‘simple’ recipes. Agreed, some desserts and patisserie need a certain chocolate because of its properties and how it combines with other ingredients or to add a particular flavour note. For biscuits though, buy and use what you like to eat – there’s no point covering them in dark chocolate if you can’t stand it! For something like this I tend to use a 50:50 mix of dark and milk, as I think it needs a little extra strength but my children won’t eat dark chocolate by itself.

Equipment

• 2 large baking trays (or cook in two batches if you only have one)
• Bowls – one large one for melting the chocolate
• Small ice cream scoop if you have one (this ensures the biscuit dough is the same size for every one)
• Extra baking parchment

Ingredients

• Unsalted butter at room temperature – 120g
• Demerera sugar – 100g
• Soft brown sugar – 65g
• Egg, medium – 1
• Plain flour – 185g
• Baking powder – 1/2 teaspoon
• Pistachio nuts, roughly chopped – 25g
• Pecan nuts, roughly chopped  – 25g
• White chocolate drops – 30g
• Dried cranberries – 25g
• Salt – a pinch
• Vanilla bean paste or extract – 1/2 teaspoon

To cover:

• Chocolate – 150 – 200g

Method

1. Line the two baking trays with parchment or a silicone sheet
2. Cream the butter and sugar together
3. Mix in everything else except the nuts and white chocolate drops until combined
4. Throw in the nuts and white chocolate drops and mix gently until they are distributed evenly throughout
5. Make about 24 small balls with the dough using the small ice cream scoop, or use a tablespoon measure, and place about 2cm apart on a tray
6. Do not flatten them
7. Refrigerate for 15 minutes at least
8. Preheat your oven to 190C conventional or 180C fan
9. Put in the oven for 12 -14 minutes
10. They are done when they are just about to go golden brown at the edges. They will be slightly soft, but do check they are not underdone in the middle (if a biscuit looks a bit translucent in the middle it still needs a couple more minutes baking). They will firm up a little more as they cool
11. Let them cool on the tray – if you lift them onto a wire rack while they are warm you risk breaking them
12. When they are fully cool, melt the chocolate
13. Temper the chocolate if you can to get a nice sheen (however it’s fine to just melt it): you can follow my infographic-based guide to tempering here
14. Lay out a strip of baking parchment ready to lie the biscuits on
15. Take each biscuit in turn and coat the flat side of the biscuit. You can do this by either picking up the biscuit and simply dipping it into the chocolate or take a teaspoon of the melted chocolate, drip it onto the upturned biscuit and then smooth it all over
16. Once each biscuit has its underside covered, lay it on the parchment and leave them all to cool fully before eating

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