Chunky Belguims

It was about time I filled up the biscuit 'tin' again, so I spent the other evening making some belgium biscuits (p35). Belgium biscuits are a favourite of mine, so I'd been looking forward to making my own.

You begin with the usual "cream butter and sugar; beat in eggs" method, though brown sugar is used in this one. Then you sift flour and sugar with cinnamon, mixed spice, cocoa and ginger and combine with the creamed mixture.


For a  start it looks like it's not going to combine, but if you keep at it, you'll wind up with a fairly stiff dough suitable for rolling. I was quite pleased with the texture of my dough the first time I rolled it out, but be wary of rolling and cutting too many times - after the first couple of rolls, the dough gets dryer and much harder to work with.


I didn't realise it at the time, but I wasn't rolling the dough quite thin enough. The rounds I cut out were quite chunky, but I decided to go with it instead of re-rolling.


Once the biscuits were baked and cooled, they had to be iced and filled. The kind of belgium biscuits you see in a bakery or cafe generally have white icing with pink sprinkles - these just have the icing coloured pink instead.

I mixed icing sugar with vanilla, water, and a couple of drops of red food colouring. Instead of the pale pastel I was expecting, my icing wound up a mildly disturbing hot pink. Never mind: I spread half of my biscuits with icing, the other half with raspberry jam, and sandwiched them together.


Since my individual biscuits were cut too thick, the sandwiched pairs are considerably fatter than I'd usually expect from a belgium biscuit. They still taste good, though. Next time I'll just be careful to roll a little thinner!