Homemade Bourbon Biscuits

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Rolling pin
• •Two sheets of baking parchment
• •Sharp knife or pastry wheel
• •Ruler (genuinely useful here)
• •Two baking trays
• •Wire cooling rack
• •Fine sieve for the cocoa and icing sugar

Instructions

1. 1

   Cream the butter and sugar

   Put the softened butter and brown sugar into a bowl and beat them together until pale and fluffy. A wooden spoon and some patience will do it; an electric whisk takes about two minutes. Add the golden syrup, the milk, and the vanilla, and beat again until it all comes together into something glossy and faintly toffee-scented.

   The butter must be properly soft. Cold butter fights you the whole way and gives you a streaky dough. Take it out an hour before you start.
2. 2

   Bring the dough together

   Sift the flour, cocoa, bicarbonate of soda, and salt straight into the bowl. Stir it through with a spoon at first, then bring it together with your hands. It should come into a soft, dark dough that just holds together. If it feels dry and cracked, add another teaspoon of milk. If it feels sticky, leave it alone for a minute. Flatten it into a disc, wrap it, and put it in the fridge for half an hour.

3. 3

   Roll and cut

   Heat the oven to 170C/150C fan and line two trays with baking parchment. Roll the chilled dough out between two sheets of parchment to about 4mm thick. This is the trick. Rolling it directly on the work surface will have you fighting it. Between parchment, it behaves. Cut into neat rectangles, about 6cm by 3cm. A ruler isn't a bad idea here. The shape is half the pleasure of a bourbon.

   Re-roll the scraps once, gently. Twice and the biscuits go tough. The off-cuts from the second roll are the cook's portion. Eat them warm.
4. 4

   Prick and bake

   Lift the rectangles onto the trays, leaving a little room between them. Now the iconic bit: prick each one with a fork in two neat rows of small holes. It looks fussy. It is fussy. Do it anyway. Bake for twelve to fifteen minutes. They should feel just firm at the edges and still give very slightly in the middle when you press one. They firm up as they cool. Pulling them out a touch early is always the right call.

5. 5

   Cool completely

   Slide the parchment off the hot trays and onto a rack. Let the biscuits cool entirely. Warm biscuits and buttercream are a disaster: the filling slumps out the sides and you end up with chocolate puddles instead of sandwiches. Patience here pays.

6. 6

   Make the filling

   Beat the softened butter in a bowl until pale and creamy. Sift in the icing sugar and cocoa, then beat again until smooth and glossy. It should hold a soft peak. If it feels stiff, add a teaspoon of milk. Taste it. It wants to be properly chocolatey, not just sweet, so add a little more cocoa if you think it needs it.

   Cover the bowl with a tea towel when you start beating in the icing sugar, or your kitchen will look like it has been dusted with snow.
7. 7

   Sandwich and finish

   Turn half the biscuits upside down on the rack. Spoon a generous teaspoon of buttercream onto each, or pipe it if you want to be tidy. Set another biscuit gently on top and press until the filling just peeks out at the edges. Don't squash them. They're biscuits, not flapjacks. Leave them to set for half an hour, then put the kettle on. We're only making dinner, but this is what comes after.

Chef Tips

• •The cocoa is the whole biscuit. Buy the best dark cocoa you can find, the kind that smells like a chocolate factory when you open the tin. Supermarket own-brand cocoa will give you a beige, polite biscuit. Good cocoa gives you the proper deep, almost-black thing you're after.
• •Chill the dough properly before rolling. Warm dough sticks, tears, and rolls out unevenly. Half an hour in the fridge changes everything. If your kitchen is hot, make it forty minutes.
• •Don't skip the fork-pricking. It looks like decoration but it stops the biscuits from puffing up in the oven, which means they stay neat and flat and bourbon-shaped. The pattern is just a happy by-product.
• •Stored in a tin with a tight lid, these keep for four or five days and are actually better on day two, when the buttercream has settled into the biscuit a little. Don't refrigerate. Cold ruins the texture.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be made a day ahead and kept wrapped in the fridge. Let it sit out for fifteen minutes before rolling so it isn't rock hard.
• •The unfilled biscuits keep in a tin for three days before sandwiching, which is useful if you want to spread the work over two afternoons.
• •Filled biscuits keep in an airtight tin for four to five days. They soften slightly over time, which some people prefer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 41g)