Chocolate Bourbons

This week I've had a number of boring jobs stacking up like going to the bank so, I decided to have a day off work using my stored up toil hours. Fortunately I picked a lovely sunny day so as I type this I am sat in the garden slightly cautious that it doesn't take much sunshine to burn my pasty skin!

As well as doing my boring jobs I decided to do a bit of baking - this was the first baking I have done in a while that was relaxed and wasn't a mad rush late night baking or at a weekend between running here there are everywhere. I really enjoyed taking my time - its reminded me why I use baking as a form of relaxation!

Today's blogging view

Anywhoo less of the chit chat this is a baking blog after all so lets get stuck in. I decided to take part in the secret ingredient challenge hosted by itsabakingthing and today's ingredient was syrup. Rather than going out and spending money I picked a recipe for which I already had everything I needed - chocolate bourbons.  The syrup they include is the ever so sticky, golden syrup. Shop brought chocolate bourbons also happen to be dairy free, so in keeping with this - so are mine.

To make approximately 25 chocolate bourbons you will need:

For the biscuit:

• 100g Dairy free butter
• 100g Soft brown sugar
• 220g Plain flour
• 40g Cocoa powder
• 1 Teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
• 2 Tablespoons of golden syrup
• A splash of Soya milk
• 
  

For the filling:

• 100g Dairy free butter
• 150g Icing sugar
• 2 tbs Cococa powder
• A splash of Soya milk

To decorate:

• Caster sugar for dusting

The method is simple:

• Put all of the biscuit ingredients in a bowl and mix into a constant dough. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill for around 20 minutes.

• Once chilled, roll out the dough on a floured surface to around 3mm thick. Use a rectangular cutter to cut out an even number of biscuits. I have a special bourbon stamp available from Baker and Maker which puts the traditional pattern on but if you don't have one of these you can use a skewer to add a few dots around the edge for a similar finish. You can re-rolll the dough just be cautious not to do it more than a maximum of 2 times otherwise your biscuits might become quite hard.

• Transfer your cut out biscuits to a baking tray and pop them back in the fridge for however long it takes your oven to heat up to 180c fan.
• Bake your biscuits for around 12 minutes, remove from the oven, sprinkle with a little caster sugar and allow to cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
• Whilst your biscuits are cooling make the filling by mixing all of the ingredients together until fully combined. Pipe or spread this on one biscuit before sandwiching together with another.

And that's all there is too it! Incredibly simple to make but with fantastic results. You don't have to make these dairy free simply substitute the butter and milk for dairy equivalents. Or you could go the other way and cater for even more allergies and use gluten free flour.

If you're a fan of traditional biscuits I would also recommend my custard cream recipe and my dairy free jammy dodgers. If I drank tea, I'm sure they would be a perfect accompaniment. 

Happy baking - let me know how you get on 

Rach x