Two Bikkies, Different Looks

One of my christmas presents this year was a "Cookie-A-Day" desk calendar. It's been useful, particularly last night when I couldn't sleep and was feeling bored (VERY bored, as you might realise). And I decided I wanted to try an old favourite that had been given a little revamp in there. But first of all, I found passionfruit in my local Coles, so decided to whip up a batch of melting moments for old-times sake.


These little guys are always popular. They're a fool-proof standby for me when it comes to having to make biscuits. I have NEVER been able to stuff them up. But by the 60th little ball of dough I was VERY sick of rolling and pressing, so with the bit that was left I did...


... something a little different. Yep, I rolled the dough out flat then cut out a solid disk and a disk with a teddy bear cut out of it (aw so cute) and made sandwiches. You might also spy some cute little teddy-bear-shaped bikky sandwiches hiding on the plate too.

But back to the calendar. Jam drops were listed with a variation that suggested substituting a little cocoa for the flour, and nutella for jam. "Interesting", I thought to myself, "Worth a try".


(I can think of several unpleasant things that dollop of nutella reminds me of, but I'm trying really hard to ignore them)

Again, rolling dough (and trying to make all the little balls the same size) really got old after the first two dozen, so with the last of the dough I cut out circles, put a dollop of nutella in the middle, then folded them in half to cook and...


... came out with these little pillows. I think I prefer these. Very nice. Have had positive comments from all who sampled.

It's amazing what just modifying one little ingredient, or the presentation, can change something as simple as a biscuit.

Melting Moments:

Preheat oven to 160C. Cream 250g of softened butter with 1tsp vanilla essence and 1/2 cup pure icing sugar (not icing sugar mixture). Sift in 2 cups of plain flour and 1/3 cup of cornflour and mix until dough forms. Roll teaspoons-full of mixture into balls and place onto greased baking trays (or just use baking paper). Dipping a fork regularly in some flour, press down on the biscuits. Bake for 15 minutes or until lightly golden and cooked. Cool on trays for 10 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.

When completely cool, mix 60g of butter with the pulp from one large passionfruit and 1 cup of icing sugar (or more, depending on how much icing you want and what consistency you like). Spread on the flat bottom of a biscuit then sandwich another on. Yum.

Jam Drops:

I've previously posted the jam drops recipe I use, but the link I put in doesn't work any more :-( So here it is.

Preheat oven to 180C. Cream 126g of butter with 1/2 cup of caster sugar and 1 tsp of vanilla essence. Add 1 egg and beat well. Sift in 1 1/4 cups self-raising flour and mix until dough forms. Roll teaspoons-full of dough into balls and place onto greased baking trays. Lightly make an indent on top with your thum, then fill with a little jam.

For the chocolate ones I substituted 2tbl of cocoa for some of the flour (to make the total still 1 1/4 cups of dry powdery stuff), then dropped nutella on instead of jam.

Yum again.