Romany Creams

Romany Creams used to be the Rolls-Royce of biscuits when I was young, and judging by the reaction of a my grandson in the supermarket, putting packets of a commercial variety into the trolley when shopping with my daughter, I guess they are still popular. I had a recipe for them many years ago but it seems to have gone AWOL, so I sought one out. It is perhaps more economical to buy these biscuits, but there's much more fun in making them with Nanna, according to my little man. So here's the recipe I found... It looks pretty much the same as I can remember from my old recipe.

Ingredients:

200g Castor Sugar
250g butter
2 medium eggs
580g Cake Flour
30g Cocoa powder
5ml Baking Powder
260g Desiccated Coconut
200g Good quality milk chocolate.

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to180^oC

Soften the butter. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs one at a time making sure they are well blended.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder then fold into the butter/sugar mixture.

Fold the desiccated coconut into the resultant mixture, making sure it is evenly distributed.

Mix to a fairly stiff dough , if too crumbly you may add a little sunflower oil.

Form the dough into approximately walnut sized balls and flatten to about 5mm (0.2in) high. Use the tines of a fork to do this in order to get a rough texture on top of the cookie.

Place the cookies on a greased baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes.

Remove the cookies from the baking sheet and cool on a wire rack, do not allow to cool on the baking sheet otherwise they will become soggy.

When the biscuits are totally cool melt the chocolate over a basin of hot water or in a microwave, but do not allow it to become too “runny” as you want a relatively thick layer of chocolate between the biscuits.

Sandwich pairs of biscuits together with a thick layer of chocolate and pop the Romany Creams into a fridge for a few minutes to speed up the chocolate hardening process.


Makes approximately 4 dozen.