The Recipe

Ingredients:

• For The Biscuits
• 225g Plain white flour (all-purpose flour) - that's approximately 2 cups
• 100g Unsalted butter (about 4 ounces)
• 100g Caster sugar (a little under half a cup)
• 30g Cocoa Powder (2 Tablespoons)
• Half a teaspoon baking powder
• 60g Malt extract syrup (about 2 heaped tablespoons)
• 1 Tablespoon milk
• For The Filling
• 50g Unsalted butter (about 2 ounces)
• 50g Icing sugar (about 4 ounces or 1/3 of a cup)
• 60g Malt powder (half a cup) - Horlicks or Ovaltine malted drink mix is good, or you can get spray dried malt at a brewing supply store.

Method:

Leave the butter out of the fridge for a while so it reaches room temperature.

Blend the butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon - it should form a soft paste.

Add the malt extract syrup and blend this into the sugar/butter mix.

Add the flour, caster sugar, cocoa and baking powder.

Mix together with a spoon - it will eventually turn dark and finely crumbly.

Add just a little milk (a tablespoonful should do it) and mix again - the crumbs should come together into a soft pliable, non-sticky dough.

Preheat the oven to 160C (325F or Gas Mark 3).

Take some of the dough and roll it out on a floured board until about 3 to 4 mm thick

Cut out shapes with a cookie cutter - any shape will do as long as they are all the same (but round ones are easiest to fill later).

Re-knead and re-roll the offcuts until you've used most of the dough. Aim to make an even number of biscuits.

Place the shapes on a nonstick baking tray - they can be put quite close together as they won't spread.

Prick them all with a fork or skewer - this is just to prevent them puffing up during baking, but you can get arty with the pattern if you want.

Place in the oven and set a timer for 8 minutes.

While the biscuits are baking, prepare the filling.

Put the butter, icing sugar and malted drink powder in a bowl (a bigger one than pictured here, or you'll spill it during mixing).

Mix with a fork initially to break up the butter, then a wooden spoon as the mix starts to form a paste.

The filling mixture will turn into a thick paste that can be kneaded and formed by hand.

The biiscuits will be a little fragile when they first come out of the oven - you may think they're not fully cooked, but they harden as they cool - they should be an even chocolate brown colour.

Allow them to cool for 5 minutes on the tray, then place on wire racks to cool completely.

When they're completely cool, sandwich them together with the filling.

Roll a small ball of filling, about the size of a marble, then place it between two biscuits (with the hole marks facing outwards).

Gently squeeze the two halves together to evenly spread the filling until it almost reaches the edges.

Store in an airtight tin or box.

These biscuits are delicious when dunked in cold milk or a nice hot cup of tea.

Double Malt Double Chocolate Biscuits

OK, how about this - these biscuits are even more delicious if they are dipped in melted chocolate and left to set on a nonstick sheet in the fridge - turning them into double-malt double-chocolate biscuits!

Malt Extracts

I bought this jar of malt extract in a health food store - it's just a pure concentration of malt with a syrupy texture.

It's important to read the label, as some health supplement malt extracts have other ingredients such as added vitamins or even cod liver oil - and these won't be good for this recipe.