Chocolate or Vanilla biscuits? cant choose. lets have both.

well i dont mean just plain chocolate or plain vanilla biscuits! NEVER!
these biscuits originate from a divine chocolate ship cookies recipe but instead of adding choc chips
i added a few of my favourite ingredients and you can do the same or stick with the ones i used:
fig and ginger in the vanilla biscuits and orange chocolate chunks in the chocolate biscuits

showing the ingredients in case you find yourself in the middle of rome with nowhere to go and nothing to do. you can visit Castroni's, its a specialty food store which imports food stuffs from around the globe. whenever i can find something in the italian supermarkets (like anything ginger related) i merrily skip off to Castroni's and browse around the wonderful things that smell of home.

the amount of bits i used for the vanilla biscuits

resist temptation to snack

the finished vanilla biscuits
see recipe at end of this post

 

The good stuff...I bought dutch processed cocoa for the first time in my life and i now realise just what ive been missing. all the schmansy recipes always said 'dutch processed cocoa powder' (in a posh british accent) and i usually just thought, meh. all i have is normal cocoa... i'll use that it cant be that different but wait! it is! its smoother and so much richer, you can smell the difference. or maybe you just smell the money you spent to get the precious package because it costs a pretty penny! but i dont think you will regret it

look how rich the dough is! maybe i will modify it for a cookie dough truffle recipe. doesn't that sound delicious, i think so!

the finished chocolate biscuit
scroll down for recipe

with a good cup of tea i could finish the whole plate myself!

Recipe 

Vanilla, ginger-fig biscuits and Chocolate chunk biscuits

both biscuits start with the same ingredients then we separate the mixture and add different things to get the different biscuits

Method:

recipe makes about 24 small biscuits

1) heat oven to 180' C

2) cream 1/3 cup butter with 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup white sugar. beat until white and fluffy

    Add 1 tsp vanilla esscence and 1 egg, beat well.

3) split the mixture equally between 2 bowls. we are now going to add the dry ingredients for each type of biscuit seperately. (if you are only making one type of biscuit then ignore this step and see the tip at the bottom)

4) for the Vanilla biscuits: add 1/2 cup flour, pinch baking soda, pinch salt.

    Stir until combined 

    then stir in 1/2 cup chopped goodies (i chopped up sugared ginger and dried figs which added a delicious

    caramel flavour)

5) for the Chocolate biscuits: in the other bowl with half the creamed mixture.

    Stir in 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 cup DUTCH PROCESSED cocoa :), pinch baking soda, pinch salt.

    Stir until combined.

    Then stir in 1/2 cup chocolate chunks (i roughly cut up about 50gr of dark orange chocolate mm..)

6) bake at 180'C for 10-12 min or as you like :)

TIP: if you only want to make one type of biscuit skip out step 3 and double the dry ingredients for the biscuit type you are making.

Happy baking!