Coffee Break

It was the first Monday in October, the sun was shining, I was off work all week and it was a perfect opportunity to try out a new recipe. On this occasion I decided to cook something a little bit retro in the shape of some coffee sandwich biscuits.

The soundtrack for the cooking was Van Morrison's under-appreciated 1986 offering No Guru, No Method , No Teacher the album's laid back vibes, carefully delivered vocals, swirling string arrangements and Mexican horns made it perfect chill out material for a man on holiday.

I took six ounces of self-raising flour and mixed them with three ounces of caster sugar. Once the flour and sugar were suitably mixed I added three ounces of margarine and rubbed it into the flour and sugar with a tablespoon until the outside of the pieces of margarine were made as dry as dust by the flour.

I emptied the contents of an egg, having first brought it to room temperature, into a separate bowl and beat it vigorously. In a mug I dissolved two tablespoons of instant coffee in one tablespoon of hot water. I then poured the egg and the liquid coffee into bowl with the margarine, sugar and flour and stirred everything together until the contents of the bowl had turned into a hazel-coloured soft cookie dough.

The next step was to separate the dough into cherry sized balls making sure that I had an even number of them so that each pair would form two parts of one sandwich.

I baked the pieces of dough on a greased baking tray in the oven at 180 degrees (170 for fan ovens) for fifteen minutes and then left them on the side to cool after they had cooked for the allotted time.

In the meantime I made some coffee butter cream icing by taking four ounces of icing sugar, two ounces of margarine and a tablespoon of instant coffee granules and stirring them together with a wooden spoon in a bowl until I had a filling thick enough to hold together the biscuit part of the recipe.

When the biscuit pieces were cooled I took the flat side, which was attached to the baking tray whilst it was cooking, and spread icing on it. I then joined it with the flat side of another of the biscuit pieces to make a sandwich. I repeated the process for the other pieces of biscuit until I had around sixteen which I then piled up on a convenient plate.

The biscuits are certainly suitable for those who like their trips to Costa Coffee and Starbucks as the whole coffee granules in the icing have the strong and raw taste of fresh coffee while the coffee flavouring in the biscuits is a little more subtle but no less distinctive in its taste.