Today I made some wonderfully crispy biscuits and sandwiched them together with a chocolate ganache. I got the idea when I saw some pictures of a French biscut Prince Chocolate. They are a two thin biscuits/cookies that are sandwiched with chocolate, with a pattern imprinted on them.. The biscuit has to be hard and crispy giving a crunch when eating, and then the rich chocolate flavour in the middle. For mine I decided to make some patterned and a few plain too, just to see if there was a difference in how they baked, as much as anything else.
The recipe is simple, but patience is needed to get as many biscuits out of the dough, since having cut out as many as you can it is necessary to chill the remaining dough before cutting out more.
Then it is just a case of baking and waiting for them to cool as you make a simple ganache with dark chocolate and a little double cream and then filling the biscuts and allowing the ganache to firm up before serving.
Mine turned out very well indeed, they have a wonderful crunch to the biscuit and the firm ganache that softens in the mouth releasing the intense chocolate flavour.
Ingredients:
For the biscuits/cookies:
- 300g plain flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 80g icing sugar
- 80g unsalted butter, in cubes
- 50ml cold water.
For the ganache:
- 15g dark chocolate chopped into small pieces.
- 60ml double cream.
Method:
- In a large bowl place the flour and baking powder and sift in the icing sugar.
- Mix together with a whisk to combine.
- Place the butter and water into a pan and heat until the butter has melted.
- Allow it to cool for a few minutes then pour the butter mixture into the flour and stir to combine and form a dough. Keep mixing, using a hand if necessary, until all the flour mixture has combined and the sides of the bowl are clean.
- Form the dough into a disc(I actually halved it and made two discs) and wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for two hours.
- Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/350F
- Lightly dust the work surface with flour, or icing sugar and roll out the dough to a thickness of 1/8 inch(3 mm).
- Using a 2 1/4inch(6 cm) cookie cutter, with the scalloped edge facing down, cut out the cookies and place them on a baking sheet that is lined with parchment paper.
- If you wish to use the off cuts of dough make sure you chill it thoroughly first.
- Make some patterns on them if you wish, little dots with a skewer, for instance.
- Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, the tops will start to colour and the edges may slightly brown.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely, on a wire rack.
- For the ganache either heat the cream to boiling point and pour over the chopped chocolate and stir until all has melted and combined, or melt the chocolate in a bain marie, or microwave and pour in the cream, stirring until all is combined.
- Turn half the cookies upside down and spoon, or pipe, a good amount of ganache on.
- Take the remaining cookies and place on top of the ganache, gently pressing down to push the ganache to the edges.
- Allow the ganache to firm up before eating.