Savour and Devour: Very Chocolate Afgans

I got home from a long day at work on Saturday and found the husband pining after biscuits. Of course, I jumped at the chance to break out the new KitchenAid. Lester thought that all sounded like way too much hard work after my day at work, but for me, the 15 minutes baking these treats was enough to relax and unwind after a full on day... I have to keep reminding him that this is my relaxing hobby :)

Anything containing breakfast cereal as an ingredient is always going to sound a bit like a children's lunchbox treat, so I make my afghans slightly more 'adult' by taking the chocolate up a notch. You don't need actual chocolate to do this - just some decent Dutch-processed Cocoa - Equagold is my favourite, or Valhrona do a great one too. Just compare the colour to your old cocoa and you'll see why this stuff is the business for making your baking rich and very very chocolately.

I also add Vanilla paste to the biscuit and the icing, and that really brings out the chocolate flavour further.

Chocolate Afgans

Adapted from The Edmonds Cookbook

For the Biscuits:

200g unsalted Butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup Caster Sugar

1 cup Plain Flour

1/2 cup Dutch Cocoa powder

pinch of salt

1 tsp Vanilla paste or real vanilla extract

2 cups Cornflakes

For the Icing:

25g unsalted Butter, melted

4 tablespoons Dutch processed Cocoa

1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Paste

2 tablespoons hot water

2 Cups Icing Sugar

Thread coconut

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees fanbake (or 180 degrees normal)

Cream the butter and sugar with a hand mixer, or preferably in the bowl of a stand mixer, until really light a fluffy - a good 5-10 minutes or whatever your arm can handle. Add salt and vanilla and beat again.

Sift flour and cocoa into butter mixture, and mix with a spatula or wooden spoon until almost incorporated. Add cornflakes and mix again.

Roll tablespoon-fuls into balls on a lined oven tray, and press gently with a fork.

Bake for about 15 minutes, or until set. You want to avoid them getting brown or burnt (which is suprisingly easy to do when they so dark from the cocoa), so keep checking from about 10 mins onwards, and remove as soon as they have firmed up.

Transfer to a cooling rack, and ice when cool.

To make your icing - mix the melted butter, vanila, cocoa, icing sugar and hot water together, adding more water and/or icing sugar as needed to make the right consistency (quite stiff). You also want it to be as dark as the biscuits, so add more cocoa if needed. It really helps if you sift your icing sugar first, then you get a really smooth icing.

Ice the biscuits with a generous amount of icing (I piped mine on to get a smooth finish), and top with coconut thread.

Warning - these are completley addictive - and very very good with a cup of tea. We finished these off last night watching Homeland, and I almost want to leap up now and make another batch!