The Recipe:-
Hedgehog Slice
Ingredients (Makes around 18-24 pieces, depending on how generous you like to be!)
Base
750g Milk Coffee Biscuits (I use my own home-made biscuits,
I'll include the recipe for these at the end!)250g Butter
250g White Sugar
4 Tablespoons Cocoa
2 Eggs, well beaten
3/4 Cup Granulated Nuts
1 Tablespoon Vanilla
Icing
1/4 Cup Cocoa
3 Cups Icing Mixture
1/3 Cup Boiling Water
Dessicated Coconut
First, take the biscuits and break them up into a bowl (that isn't going to melt if you add hot liquid to it!). You don't want to crumble the biscuits completely to dust, you want some little chunks left in there
If you haven't already beaten your eggs, do so now in a small bowl. Add the cocoa to it and set aside, within reach of your stove top.
Next, take a medium sized saucepan and melt together the butter and sugar over low heat.
Once the butter has been completely melted, add the beaten eggs and cocoa and mix until well combined with your wooden spoon (or stirrer of choice, we're not fancy here!).
Continue to mix over low heat, bringing just to the boil. The trick I use to measure whether its 'done' or not is to give the mixture a really thorough stir, then allow it to rest back and count to three. If I get bubbling in that time, its ready. The process from melting the butter until just on boiling takes me about 7-8 minutes, again on a crankin' gas stove-top, so bear that in mind!
I tried to get a shot of the mixture just bubbling above, didn't quite work out how I'd hoped and I couldn't wait to get a good shot, so, onwards we press.
Remove the mixture from the heat and add the Vanilla, stir through quickly and then pour over your bowl of crushed biscuits.
Add your crushed nuts and mix through thoroughly
Once you have everything nice and well combined, pour into a lined slice tray (I use my 26cm square Springform for this)
Spread evenly to the edges, (I try to use stainless steel or metal utensils for this purpose, they tend to give me less grief!) and smooth the top. I use the back of a cereal/soup spoon to do this, so far, best tool for the job that I've experimented with.
Pop in the fridge and we'll get to work on your icing.
Place the Icing Mixture and the Cocoa in a medium sized bowl and add around half the boiling water. Mix until well combined, adding extra boiling water as required until you have an even colour and consistency.
Spread it evenly over the top of the slice, spreading to the edges and smoothing the top.
Next, grab a small handful of coconut and sprinkle over the top.
Back into the refrigerator, keep it in there at least an hour or two, nothing worse than the icing not being set enough when you cut this slice, very messy and to be avoided at all costs.
And the finished product
- delish!
Before I depart for the evening (its the next day, but, I don't count it until the sun is shining), a couple of little cupcake creations from this afternoon. You may think you recognise the work of Homer and Starwipe here...
but you'd be wrong!! Well, half-wrong. A fine showing by Homer, but Starwipe got a rest and my 56 nozzle set came out for a little play. As you can see, I boldly threw caution to the wind and went for something I've never done before, ok, ok, my sarcasm is shit and yes I was weak and played with yet another star nozzle, but in my defence, I was too lazy to put together the couplers for my new piping bags, so I was limited to Homer, and, whichever of my new nozzles would work with him. That was either the buttercream rose nozzle, or, a steel version of my beloved Starwipe. Since I've never attempted a buttercream rose before (and surprisingly was not in the mood for an adventure, I truly wanted a realistic finish time from the kitchen tonight!), I opted to work with my current skill set, instead of against it for a change.
Before I forget, my biscuit recipe! This will yield around 1.5kg of cooked biscuits. I divide the cooked batch of biscuits roughly in half, then pop each portion in snap lock bags and they then live in my freezer, awaiting their fate.
Condensed Milk Biscuits
Ingredients
500g Butter
1/2 Cup White Sugar
1 tin Sweetened Condensed Milk (I use one quantity of my homemade stuff instead)
5 Cups Self Raising Flour
Cream the butter, condensed milk and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add half the self raising flour, after which, you'll need to switch to mixing in by hand or wooden spoon. You can roll the dough out and cut with a cookie cutter, or, just roll up balls of mixture and place on your cookie tray, flattening them before baking. Leave a gap of a few cm between each biscuit. Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until lightly golden - I opt for 150c in my oven (fan forced gas).
Until next time...
