Afternoon Tea Week – Sandwich-style Chocolate Biscuits

It’s Afternoon Tea Week so why not make these delicious and cute biscuits as a treat? This recipe is taken from Le Cordon Bleu Pastry School.

Sandwich-style Chocolate Biscuits

Makes approx. 10 biscuits

Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Cooking Time: about 15 minutes
Setting Time: 12 minutes

Sweet Pastry Dough
200 g plain flour
120 g unsalted butter
25 g ground almonds
65 g icing sugar
2 g salt
1 small egg (40 g)

Ganache
200 g chocolate (65% cocoa)
225 ml cream
22 g glucose
35 g unsalted butter

Equipment needed
7-cm biscuit cutter
2-cm biscuit cutter
12-mm biscuit cutter
piping bag – size 12 star nozzle

For the sweet pastry dough discs

• Preheat the oven to 150°C (gas mark 2). Roll out the sweet pastry dough [see below on how to make the dough] to a thickness of 4 mm.
• Use the 7 cm biscuit cutter to cut out 20 discs and place on a baking tray lined with a silicone baking mat.
• Take 10 discs and cut out ‘eyes’ with the 12-mm biscuit cutter and a ‘mouth’ with the 2-cm cutter. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until the discs are golden brown.

For the ganache

• Chop the chocolate into a bowl. Heat the cream; just before it reaches the boil, remove from heat and mix in the glucose.
• Pour the hot liquid over the chocolate and mix well.
• Mix in the butter. Cover with cling film and let stand at room temperature for 12 hours.

Assembly

• Transfer the ganache to a piping bag fitted with the star nozzle.
• Pipe a swirl of ganache onto each of the whole biscuit discs.
• Top each of the ganache disc with a ‘face’ round, pressing them together gently to make the ganache come up through the eyes and mouth.

Sweet Pastry Dough

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Chilling time: 1 hour

In a bowl, whisk the butter until light and creamy.
Add the icing sugar and whisk until homogeneous and smooth.
Add the ground almonds.
Add the egg and mix well.
Lastly, add the flour and mix until the dough is smooth.
Form the dough into a ball, flatten slightly and refrigerate for 1 hour.