Household Rules: Use Everything! Recycled-Biscuits-Sandwich-Biscuit

Let’s pretend…
I’ll pretend I like cooking and you pretend it tastes nice…You’ll eat and you’ll like it.

The image of the perfect housewife who kept a spotless home, had her husband’s dinner ready as soon as he walked through the door from work and single-handed raised the children – while still always managing to look fashionable and beautiful – is a well-known stereotype from the 1950’s. In my dreams, my home is just as immaculate. Delicious meals bubble away on the stove and the sofa cushions are always neatly plumped… But the reality is very different. Like most working women, my life is on permanent fast forward. There are, however, some priceless lessons provided by these spotless versions of household-lady-perfection: cooking with leftovers. Living through the rationing of the Second World War taught thrifty 1950’s housewives to never waste a scrap. If that meant cobbling together a hearty meal from leftovers, then so be it…. surprisingly, it always meant something new and successful on the table.

  

Using biscuit to make a biscuit might sound a strange idea, however, consumers have never complained about finding broken crumbs in the base of the cheesecakes…The idea of using already baked dough in the biscuit dough is simply based of humans’ love for everything crunchy and caramelized. Whilst almost all self-respecting biscuits would try their best to provide the hungry owners with a decent snap, still, recycling the older biscuit in the new creation is something different in terms of the snap. Using biscuit in biscuit is more than an insurance for a good snap, it alters the taste, it differentiates the texture, it changes the appearance and, most importantly, it is clever, it is elegant, it is certainly chic and it is saving money. The only slightly dark side of the process, that it leaves  its maker with the vintage dilemma of old-fashioned pin-up housewives:  “If we are what we eat, am I fast, cheap and easy?” Never mind. Make, do, mend and keep smiling…

I can only please one person per day. Today I choose me…

 

Ingredients
125 g icing sugar
20 g cocoa powder
200 g plain flour
100 g roughly broken leftover biscuit
A pinch of salt
170 g unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
85 g chopped semi-sweet chocolate
Smooth marmalade
Chocolate covered popping candy

 

Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. In a large bowl, stir together the icing sugar, cocoa, flour, biscuit pieces and salt until well blended. Cut in the butter into small pieces. Add egg and vanilla; mix until a stiff dough forms. It may take a minute to come together. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough and cut into desired shapes using biscuit cutters. If the dough is too sticky, chill for a little bit. Place biscuits wide apart onto a lined baking tray. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the surface appears dry. Allow biscuits to cool for a couple of minutes on the baking tray before removing, fill/sandwich them with smooth marmalade and place onto wire racks to cool completely. When sandwich biscuits are completely cool, melt the chocolate over a double boiler or in the microwave. Stir frequently until smooth. Dip cookies, sprinkle with chocolate covered popping candy and place on grease-proof paper to set.

What’s on my to-do-list today???…Oh, right. Everything!