I was recently asked by the lovely founder of 1999 Magazine, 16 year old Ruby, to create a recipe that would feature in the first issue. “1999 is a magazine that celebrates and encourages creativity” with recipes, articles, artwork and photography from an array of contributors. It’s a pleasure to be featured and the magazine is such an amazing and cool achievement for Ruby, so everyone head over to 1999 and order your copy!
I couldn’t resist sharing the recipe on my blog too so here you have, my dark chocolate dipped almond biscuits with sea salt. These gluten and grain free biscuits are packed with protein and fibre from the ground almonds and coconut flour, yet remain completely soft and smooth inside. The almondy-deliciousness is really brought out by the vanilla and almond extract; start with half a teaspoon of almond extract, but add more if you want a little bit more of a ‘marzipan’ taste. The addition of the healthy fats from the grass-fed butter or coconut oil provide a great flavour to the mix; you only need a touch of sweetness from the pure maple syrup to satisfy your taste buds. Incredibly simple but so good.
Dark chocolate dipped almond biscuits with sea salt Makes approx. 12 biscuits
200g ground almonds 6 tbsp coconut flour 1/4 tsp baking soda Pinch of sea salt 3 tbsp pure maple syrup 3 tbsp organic unsalted butter or coconut oil, at room temperature 1 tsp vanilla extract or seeds from 1 vanilla pod 1/2-1 tsp almond extract 1 free range egg 75g dark chocolate (I use Green & Black’s 85% cocoa)
Preheat the oven to 350F/175C.
Place the ground almonds and coconut flour in a food processor and blitz for a minute to create a smoother flour. Add the baking soda and a pinch of sea salt and continue to mix. Add the maple syrup, coconut oil/softened butter, vanilla, almond extract, and the egg. Blitz again until a dough-like mixture forms. You could also do this by hand.
Tip the mixture onto a clean surface and roll into a ball. Place the dough into the fridge for about 10-15 minutes to chill.
Take the dough out of the fridge. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough out until it has a thickness of about 1cm.
Using a glass or cookie cutter, cut out the desired shapes and place onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper. I used a glass with a diameter of 6.5cm to cut the shapes.
Bake for 8-10 minutes, until lightly golden. Then allow the cookies to cool on a cooling rack.
Whilst the biscuits cool, boil a small pan of water and melt the dark chocolate in a bowl over the pan.
Dip half of each biscuit in the melted chocolate, sprinkle with sea salt and place in the fridge for about 5 minutes to set.
Happy 1st April! A little eager for summer, I’m welcoming Spring with a crisp white attire – which, a green smoothie, some turmeric and a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter later, won’t be very white for long, I can assure you. Wearing white-on-white almost makes me feel as though I’m not wearing monochrome and feel a little less bad about avoiding colour…even though I very clearly am still wearing monochrome? I’m liking the contrast between the ragged, frayed jeans and the tailored look of the dress; definitely an easy way to dress down the open-back Zara number.
