Recipe: Jammie Dodger, Biscoff & Reese's Blondies

Sunday was a grizzly day. It was pouring with rain, I was feeling pants and it was a rest day. Humf, I could sit and stew in my misery, or do something about it. Baking has always been one of my favourite ways to relax,  once upon a time I'd spend my days pestering my gran until she'd pour over her ancient cookbooks with me and help me perfect the art of shortcrust pastry (always roll onto a slab of marble, and make sure your hands are cold) or light sponge cakes (always fold with a large metal spoon). Oh dear, I'm rambling again aren't I? Anyway, I knew the best way to cheer myself up was to pop on some Jazz music and bake something... but what to bake? 

Then, I had a brainwave. I recalled seeing Ellie's incredible looking Jammie Dodger blondies last year. The ones I promised I'd get around to making. No time like the present. I couldn't find Ellie's picture anymore, but I remembered that she'd found the recipe online, and a quick google search revealed Katie Cake's recipe. That's the badger!

What you may or may not know about me though is that I'm terribly indecisive. Like awfully so. So I actually made a smaller amount of her brownie batter and used it to make three variations on her recipe: Reese's, Biscoff, and Jammie Dodger. 

So here's my amended version Katie's recipe for the blondie mix (which makes 6 blondies).

Ingredients:

60g butter

85g caster sugar

1 large egg

100g plain flour

85g white chocolate

Toppings:

Mini Jammie Dodgers & Jam

Biscoff Spread & Biscoff Biscuits

Reese's mini peanut butter cups & peanut butter. 

Method:

1)  Preheat the oven to 175C

2) Slowly melt the butter and white chocolate together in a saucepan on a low heat, being careful to stir constantly and avoid the chocolate catching. Once melted, remove from the heat and set aside.

3) Using an electric mixer, whisk the egg and sugar until light and fluffy (approximately 2 minutes on a high setting). Then pour the chocolate mixture in, and stir until combined. 

4) Gently fold in the flour, being careful not to knock too much air out of the brownie mix

5) Pour the blondie mix into a greased, suitably sized receptacle (I used an individual brownie pan, which I bought from ASDA for £5). 

6) Now for the fun part - the toppings! For the Jammie dodger ones I dolloped about a tsp of jam in each brownie, and swirled with a toothpick before adorning with mini Jammie Dodgers. For the Biscoff I swirled in some Biscoff spread and placed a Biscoff biscuit on top*. The Reese's one? Well that was just a tsp of peanut butter swirled in, and then I broke up some mini Peanut Butter cups and topped them with that! 

7) Bake for 20 mins! 

8) Enjoy - warm, cold & with or without ice cream. They also freeze well too! 

*In hindsight, I wish I had added cinnamon to the mixture too. 

Biscoff Belgian Chocolate (Tesco)

There seems to be lots of bright blue signs in our local Tesco, pinpointing the way to new (or in this case not-so-new) products. It was one of them that called me to these Belgian chocolate coated Biscoff biscuits. I regularly buy the Biscoff crunchy spread -delicious on hot crumpets I've you've never had the pleasure of tasting it- but for some reason I tend to forget that Lotus make the biscuits themselves too. 

I'm a firm believer that if there's any way to enhance a biscuit, it has to  be by smothering it in chocolate. Fortunately Lotus didn't stop there, deeming standard chocolate not good enough for their product, and upped the game to a layer of the more superior Belgian variety. 

The biscuits came in seven handy, individually wrapped, three biscuit packs. The biscuits themselves weren't very large, and by comparison I would say that they were about a third smaller than a rich tea finger. The chocolate coating covered one side with a pretty even layer, and of course they had the characteristic Lotus crunch.

With one nibble I was transferred into chocolate-caramel heaven; the caramelised flavour was still prominent, but it was enhanced further by the silky smooth chocolate topping. These biscuits were made for dunking -although you need to be quick as they don't hold their rigidity for very long. 

The Biscoff Belgian Chocolate biscuits have got to be up there with the best (chocolate digestives and hobnobs of course!). They are a lovely indulgent treat but, I warn you, they are so good that I was left craving more after I finished my triple pack of mini biscuits... So, pass me the Biscoff spread and the crumpets please?

9/10