Chocolate Cigars

This is an old favourite in Sweden. I found a Swedish web site with possibly hundreds of recipes for biscuits and of all of them, these had to be the first ones to do, I think.



It's surprisingly easy, given how very tasty it is and a colleague at work asked me for the recipe for his kids to make for school.

Ingredients
65 g hazelnuts
265 g plain flour
4 - 5 tbsp soft brown sugar
200 g unsalted butter

100 g dark sweet chocolate for decoration

Method

1. If the hazelnuts are whole, grind them in a food processor.


2. Add the flour and the sugar - 4 tbsp makes them less sweet.


3. Cut the butter into chunks and add as well, then whizz until the dough comes together. Alternatively mix by hand, it doesn't take very long.


4. Place in a bowl, cover with clingfilm and let rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, to firm up.


5. Line a couple of baking sheets with baking paper and pre-heat the oven at 175 degrees (gas mark 4).


6. Take out the dough and shape into finger-thick pieces, about 5 cm long and line up on the baking sheets. They can go fairly closely together, as they won't rise much. I got 45 and fitted all on 2 baking sheets.


7. Bake in the middle of the oven for 15 - 20 minutes, until they just start getting a bit of colour. Then take out and let cool down.


8. Break up the chocolate and melt over a water bath. Then dip one end of the biscuits and place back on the baking sheet to set.

My food processor is tiny, so I only ground the hazelnuts in it and mixed the dough by hand. The biscuits turned out very crumbly and delicate, but firmed up over the next couple of days. I also didn't have dark sweet chocolate, but 70% cocoa solids one, so mixed in quite a bit of milk chocolate. This worked, but the milk chocolate seems to melt easier in room temperature, so they never seemed to set properly. However, for baking, I think about 50% cocoa solids is to aim for.

And one final thing - you start by biting off the chocolate bit!