Hazelnut/Peanut/Any Nut Butter Biscuits

This recipe originated with one I've already blogged using peanut butter.  It began as a Matt Preston recipe; you know the suave, English (former) host of Masterchef Australia?  He uses three ingredients and his method is a wee bit more complicated than mine (but really, how complicated can three (or five) ingredients get? - tee hee).

I had a jar of peanut butter to use up, so this came to mind.  Then I threw in a couple more ingredients, and topped the biscuits with chocolate.  And then I made them again with the jar of hazelnut butter lurking in my pantry.  Et voilà, here we have 'em.  Use any nut butter you like, my friends!  Though I have to say the salty, crunchy peanut butter I used added a new dimension:-)  (It was a Kiwi brand!)  

put on the kettle and get ready for dunking

Usually when I bake, I measure ingredients out carefully, 'cos I really dislike the whole 'cup' thing, but here it's perfectly fine to go with cups.  I don't know how many hours I must have spent in my blogging life trying to ascertain grams into ounces into kilos into litres into...

Recipe adapted by Sherry's Pickings

Makes about 14-15 biscuits:

Ingredients:

1 scant cup of caster or white sugar - I used vanilla sugar

1 cup of hazelnut butter or peanut butter or cashew butter or...

1 tsp vanilla extract

1½ tbs almond meal

1 large egg 

1 Flake chocolate bar, broken up into small pieces

a big handful of mini chocolate bits

Method:

Grab a medium mixing bowl and your electric hand beaters

In go all the ingredients (except the Flake bar and the choc bits)

Give them a whizz with the beaters for about 30 seconds, till it's just mixed together

Roll the mixture into golf ball sized pieces (or walnut sized if you prefer)

Place them on two lined baking trays, and press a fork gently into the tops of the biscuits

Scatter the Flake bits and the mini choc bits over the biscuits

Bake on 190C/375F for about ten minutes, till they are slightly puffy and golden on the edges

Let them cool on the trays for a few minutes to firm up, then place them on wire racks to get completely cold

Will keep in an airtight container for up to one week

Notes:

These biscuits are sweet, so maybe try just 3/4 cup of sugar if you like them less sweet

Use whichever nut butter you fancy - almond or cashew would be great too

You can beat the mixture together with a wooden spoon or a hand whisk if you don't have electric beaters - check out those biceps, baby!  No, not mine, you silly.  As if...

hazelnut butter version ready for mixing

and after about 30 seconds

and here's the peanut butter version

and on to the trays for baking

heading in to the oven at 190C for ten mins.

after 10-12 mins. baking

Peanut Butter guys out of the oven

and let 'em cool (tho they're nice warm too)

so delish, so sweet, so nutty, so chocolatey

artwork © Sherry's Pickings

Matt Preston (Wikimedia Commons Public Domain - Author Lenabalout)