The Great British Bake Off is back, and my flat is going to be filled to the brim with baked goods for the next few weeks because of it! Unusually for GBBO, week 1 was all about biscuits. After watching the episode, the biscuits that really captured my interest were from the signature challenge - regional biscuits. Antony's Goosnargh biscuits with caraway seeds and turmeric sounded so strange but wonderful. Better yet they were filled with mango jam, and mango chutney is one of my favourite condiments!!
I decided to give these biscuits a go, with a few adjustments. The main of these are described below, but there are a few more tweaks if you read my recipe :)
Firstly, due partially to laziness, partially due to not being a lover of icing, I didn't ice the sandwich biscuits as Antony did. I found they were sweet enough without this, and it saved a lot of time.
Secondly, I adapted the mango jam - I wasn't sure of his ratio of sugar to mango, so I tested my version out and it worked wonderfully - sweet with the heat from the chilli flakes - it would be delicious with poppadoms as well as the biscuits themselves.
Finally, Antony added baking powder to his biscuit dough. I completely forgot to do this...however, the biscuits turned out melt-in-the-mouth soft (but easy to pick up without crumbling) - like a whipped shortbread. Oh, and I used a buttery margarine instead of butter, as it meant I didn't need to worry about the butter being overly hard from the fridge.
This recipe made 12 sandwich biscuits, but I ended up not filling all of them, as the biscuits without the filling are also brilliant!
Ingredients:
For the biscuits:
- 135g (1 cup & 2 tbsp) plain flour
- 135g (2/3 cup) caster sugar
- 135g (1/2 cup + 1 tbsp) margarine (or softened butter)
- 90g (3/4 cup + 2 tbsp) icing sugar
- 2 tsp caraway seeds
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- Pinch of black pepper
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 2 tbsp milk
- Red food colouring (optional)
For the mango jam:
- 1 can of mangos, drained (a 400g tin will give you about 270g of mangoes)
- Around 270g caster sugar (the same weight as the mangoes)
- Zest and juice of 2 lemons
- 1 tsp medium strength chilli flakes
Method:
1. Make the mango jam. Firstly, once the mangoes have been drained, weigh them. Weigh out an equal quantity of caster sugar.
2. Finely blend the mango in a food processor, and then pour into a saucepan along with the sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice and chilli flakes. Bring to the boil and simmer for around 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until a sugar thermometer reads 105c/220f. Pour into a bowl and set aside to cool fully.
3. To make the biscuits, sift the flour and icing sugar into a bowl of a stand mixer with a beater attachment. Add the caster sugar, caraway seeds, turmeric, pepper and salt and briefly mix. Add the margarine/butter, and turn the stand mixer on to a low speed.
4. Keep the mixer on until the mixture has formed fine breadcrumbs. Turn off the mixture and if colouring half of the dough, tip out half of the mixture into a separate bowl.
5. To the uncoloured dough, add 1 tbsp of the milk and turn the mixer back on at a low speed. Once the dough starts to stick together, turn off the mixer and bring the dough together into a ball. Wrap in clingfilm and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
6. To the remaining mixture, dip a cocktail stick in the red food colouring (I use a concentrated gel food colouring) and dip this in the mixture. Add 1 tbsp of the milk, and bring the dough together to a ball as you did with the uncoloured dough. It will need a bit more mixing to have an evenly red coloured dough, but I quite liked the marbled effect of not fully mixing the colour through. Wrap the dough and chill for 30 minutes.
7. Preheat your oven to 180c (160c fan)/ 355f/gas mark 4. Grease and line two baking trays with baking parchment/kitchen foil.
8. Cover your work surface with clingfilm and bring the uncoloured dough out of the fridge. Unwrap and place on the work surface, before covering with a fresh sheet of clingfilm. Roll the biscuit dough out until it is around 5mm thick.
9. Use a 4cm round biscuit cutter to make rounds of the biscuits. Transfer these to the baking trays. Re-roll out the remaining dough offcuts to make as many biscuits as you can.
10. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until lightly golden on the edges. About halfway through the cooking, switch the baking trays (so the tray that was on the top shelf of your oven goes to the bottom shelf and vice versa), to help get an even bake.
11. Once baked, transfer to a wire rack to cool fully.
12. Roll out the red dough as you did the uncoloured. Use the 4cm cutter to make circles of biscuit dough. I then used a flower fondant cutter to cut out the middle of each round (but you could use a different shape if you like).
13. Bake for 8-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool fully.
14. To assemble the biscuits, flip the uncoloured biscuits over, and spread with a heaped teaspoon of the mango and chilli jam. Gently press a red biscuit on top of the jam.
15. Enjoy!
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