Chocolate Biscuits with White Chocolate Buttercream Filling

I mentioned in my last post that there was some white chocolate buttercream left over after making my birthday cake, so I decided to use it to sandwich together some chocolate flavoured biscuits.

This also gave me the chance to try out my new embossed rolling pin - a lovely birthday present from my daughter.

I chose a recipe which I've been using for many years, as I knew it didn't spread in the oven, but to be on the safe side, I also left out the small amount of baking powder which is usually added, as the instructions with the rolling pin stressed that recipes without leavening agents should be used. It was only a small batch of dough, but this was just a trial to see if the recipe worked. The amount of dough in the recipe below made 12 x 6cm diameter biscuits.

To make the biscuit dough, rub 50g butter into 75g plain flour, 25g cornflour and a pinch of salt. (1/2 a teaspoon of baking powder is usually added at this stage). Add 50g caster sugar and a level tablespoon cocoa. Add a teaspoon of coffee essence and enough milk (I used about 50ml of milk with a teaspoon of instant coffee dissolved in it) to make a stiff dough. Knead lightly and roll out on a floured surface with a plain rolling pin, to about 0.5cm in thickness, then roll over once with the embossed rolling pin. Cut into desired shapes and transfer to a baking tray lined with parchment. Try not to handle the surface at this stage. Bake at 180C for 10-12 minutes, then cool on a wire tray. Sandwich with chosen filling.

It took a while to work out how hard I needed to press with the rolling pin, and some of the first biscuits didn't hold the pattern well, but I got enough well-defined biscuits to use as the top layer. I think my dough was a little too sticky initially, as the re-rollings, after flour had been sprinkled about, were the best.

The white chocolate and mascarpone buttercream was very rich, and overwhelmed the flavour of the biscuits somewhat, but that didn't really matter - I got to practice with my rolling pin!