GBBO 2017 Week 2 - Peanut Butter Spritz Cookies

Week 2 in the tent as always was about biscuits, and the signature challenge focused in on sandwich biscuits - i.e. when you get two biscuits for the price of one, and have them sandwiched together with a delicious filling! I was impressed by Stevens amarpressi biscuits (which I did give a go and will be blogging about soon), as well as Stacey's chocolate marshmallow ones. However for my first bake I decided to go down a different route and made a chocolate spritz cookie - meltingly soft (but not fragile), with a subtle flavour of cocoa. I filled the biscuits with a flavour packed peanut butter buttercream and wowzerz the combo was yummy!

The only issue I had with these biscuits were my new disposable piping bags :( They were very flimsy, and kept tearing on me...very annoying!

They will keep for 3-5 days in an airtight container - they will soften with time.

This recipe made 12 sandwich biscuits (so 24 cookies)

You'll need two baking trays, a piping bag (use a decent quality one!), a 1D piping nozzle and baking parchment

Ingredients:

For the biscuits:

• 225g (1 cup) baking margarine (or softened butter)
• 110g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 250g (2 cups) plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 45ml (3 tbsp) milk

For the peanut butter buttercream:

• 250g (1 cup) peanut butter
• 55g (1/4 cup) softened butter
• 300g (3 cups) icing sugar, sifted
• 1-2 tbsp milk
• 15g (1 tbsp) dark chocolate

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180c (160c fan)/355f/gas mark 4. Draw 5cm circles on 2 pieces of greaseproof paper, flip and use this to line the base  of a greased baking tray.

2. Place the margarine and caster sugar into a mixing bowl and beat until very soft and fluffy. For this recipe, the best way to do is is by using an electric hand whisk (or stand mixer with the whisk attachment).

3. Add the egg, vanilla, salt, flour and cocoa and beat with a wooden spoon until a smooth dough is formed. Pour in the milk and beat in to loosen the dough - you want it to be loose enough to be able to pipe but hold it's shape.

4. Pour the batter into a piping bag fitted with a 1D (closed rose petal) nozzle. To pipe the biscuits, on the centre of one of the circles on the baking paper, pipe down and then spiral outwards to the edge of the circle. Repeat to fill the two trays. (You'll use around half the mix) They won't spread much so they can be fairly close together.

5. Chill for 10-15 minutes.

6. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the sides have slightly coloured and the top feels fi to touch. Leave on the baking tray to cool. Repeat with the remainder of the dough, piping onto lined baking trays, chilling and baking.

7. To make the buttercream, beat the butter until it is really soft, then add the peanut butter, icing sugar and 1 tablespoon of milk. Beat well with a wooden spoon, until all of the icing sugar has been incorporated. Add more milk,  teaspoons at a time, until the buttercream moves easily when you stir the bowl (but holds its shape on a spoon if you lift some from the bowl and tip the spoon).

8. Grate the chocolate into the buttercream and stir in.

9. To assemble the biscuits, flip half of the biscuits over, so that their bases are pointing upwards. Pipe filling over the biscuits with their bares pointed up. Top with the other biscuit and lightly press down.

10. Enjoy!