Chocolate and Coconut Biscuits

Anyone from the UK (and Australia) would be well aware of the lovely Davina McCall.  I have enjoyed watching her on Long Lost Family on the telly for years.  She has a number of cookbooks out, including Davina's Kitchen Favourites, from which this recipe comes.  She doesn't pretend that she devised or wrote the recipes, but she is front and centre throughout the book, displaying her lovely teeth (hehehe). 

The cover says sugar-free, but the recipes have lots (and lots!) of maple syrup and some honey, so still plenty of sweeteners here.  The cover also says 'no-fuss' which is true.  These are fairly simple and tasty recipes "to enjoy together".  I believe a child of hers is vegan so there are some vegan recipes in here too.

Speaking of vegan, I lived with various vegans and vegetarians in my student days, and I helped a mate write a vegan cookbook.  I must hunt it up, and see if there are any recipes I can make for the blog.  I seem to remember there was lots of tofu and soybeans!  And whatever happened to those tinned soybeans in tomato sauce you could buy back in the day? 

ready for the oven (yep, more chocolate)

Makes 30 biscuits:

ingredients:

200g./7 oz butter

175g./6.2 oz/135 mL of pure maple syrup

250g./9 oz plain flour (Davina says to use wholemeal spelt, but I ain't got that stuff here)

50g./1.8 oz cocoa powder

300g./10.5 oz dessicated coconut

2 tsp baking powder

a large pinch of sea salt

25g./1 oz dark chocolate, coarsely grated   see Notes

more chocolate on top before baking  (you choose how much)

icing sugar, for decoration after baking (I added more chocolate too)

use the good stuff

Method:

Throw the butter into a small saucepan and let it melt, then add the maple syrup - give it a good stir and let it cool down

Grab a large mixing bowl and add the flour, cocoa, coconut, baking powder, and salt - and give it a good stir with your whisk

Then pour in the cooled butter and maple syrup mixture, and you guessed it - stir really well! Looks like a bit of a hot mess for a bit, but it comes together into a thick dough

Now wrap in cling film or a clean plastic bag, and into the fridge to chill for half an hour or so (or more if you forget!)

Turn on your oven to 200C/390F to heat up

Grab 2 baking trays and line with baking paper  see Notes

Divide the dough into 30 pieces (I had two lumps of about 520g./18.4 oz, which I then divided into 35g./1.3 oz blobs of dough - yep, I did indeed weigh them out to make sure they were similar

Davina says to use a 6.5 cm/2.6 inch cookie cutter, but if you weigh the pieces, you can just shape the blobs into round-ish biscuits

Grate on more chocolate if you fancy then ...

Bake for 18-20 minutes till they go crisp around the edges (too dark to tell if they're browning hehehe ...)

Let 'em cool, and then cast on some icing sugar if you like and some extra bits of grated chocolate on top

These biscuits are NOT sweet in themselves, so guess what!  I melted some dark chocolate and poured it all over the tops, then put on heaps of 100s and 1000s too.  More chocolate is always more better :=)

make sure it's not expired :=)

Notes:

I used way more chocolate than that!  I added a Flake bar 30g./1 oz, and about 50g./1.8 oz chocolate bits to the dough

I divvied up my dough into 2 lumps, one for the freezer (after slicing into discs), and one to be baked - as 30 biscuits are a bit much for us!

I actually weighed them out, and then weighed each disc so I had the same size biscuits = each biscuit was about 35 grams

BTW, these are very coconutty, so don't make 'em unless you are a coconut fan

oops not Davina's spelt flour - oh well!

ingredients gathered

melt the butter and stir the dry ingredients

add in the chocolate

stir well to combine into a thick dough/mixture

divvy into two lumps if not baking all at once (each lump about 520g.)

spread 'em out on your tray(s)

ready for the oven @200C

mmm just slightly overdone? :=)

yep smother 'em in icing sugar - why not?

butter is better