Double chocolate yo-yo's

Hi Everyone! I hope you all had a super duper awesome long weekend (if you're not in Oz, we had our queens birthday long weekend so we got Monday off from work woohoo!)

On Saturday, after i did an hr bootcamp, and a cardiobox class at the gym, i came home to cook brunch for my boyfriend, and then had the whole afternoon to myself. I was stumped at what to do.. It had been a really long time since i had no plans on a saturday! So i went through my CRAVE cookbook and noticed i had bookmarked this recipe, so i gave it a go! Little did i know, i'd be finished 3 hours later..!

Some tips!

1) the mixture, is quite dry and stuff, after you mix the wet with the dry. So using your hands (after you use the spatula) try and pat together everything,. I tried to roll it together like dough- there was too much- so i gave up.

2) before you roll the teaspoon full balls - give it a bit of a massage first, get it all together, because if you just start rolling it first - the mixture will crumble when you try to flatten it with a fork

as you can see above, there are two different textures of balls. on the left, a more smooth ball (these ones i massaged with my palm and fingers) and on the right are the less smooth rolls (these are the ones i tried to roll first before massaging)

tray # 1

you can see they cracked! i assumed the mixture was too dry, so i ended up adding a couple table spoons of milk into the mixture, but it didnt change anything.

tray # 2

slightly better looking!

tray #3

perfecto!

The chocolate buttercream was just amazing! the use of real dark chocolate in both the biscuit mixture and the buttercream, just made it taste so nice! I was in a creative mood so i ended up wrapping them in clear cellophane with some fancy ribbon work :O)

Everyone who tried them liked these biscuits, im so glad, as alot of time and effort went into them!

Double chocolate yo-yo's

makes 36 double biscuits

250g unsalted butter, room temp

1/2 cup cnfectioners sugar, sifted

125g dar chocolate, melted and cooled to tepid

3 cups plain flour

1/2 cup cornflour (or cornstarch)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

choclate butter icing

90g unsalted butter, room temperature

125g (1 cup) pure icing sugar, sifted

35g dark chocolate, melted and cooled to tepid

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

preheat the oven to 170C. Line baking tray with baking paper

using an electric mixer, cream butter and icing sugar until pale and fluffy, then add cooled tepid melted chcolate.

sift flour and custard powder or cornflour and add to the creamed mixture. work the mixture using a rubber spatula to form a stiff dough, adding vanilla extract halfway through

rol teaspoons of mixture into balls and place on prepared tray, use back of fork dipped in flour to flattern each ball.

bake 20-25 minutes, depending on the size of the biscuits. to ceck if they are cooked, use a spatula to lift a biscuit off the tray, and if its evenly coloured undeneath with no uncooked dough visible in the centre, then it is cooked. allow biscuits to cool on tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

chocolate butter icing

using electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until pale and fliffy, add icing sugar gradually. add cooled melted chocolate and vanilla extract and beat thoroughly until combined.

join the biscuits together in pairs with the chocolate butter cream, allow to set, store in airtight container.