Afghan Biscuits

I love these little Afghan biscuits with their rich, crunchy base and chocolate topping. They are a New Zealand favourite and I find it interesting that the longer I live here the less clear I am about what "belongs" to one country as opposed to another and it all becomes just baking without frontiers. If I've only been eating these since I arrived in NZ then I've certainly missed out and have a lot of catching up to do.

Traditionally these would be topped with a walnut half, but the batch I made were being shared with the nut allergy sufferer, so I topped half with pieces of coconut chips (shaved coconut).  The coconut goes well with the chocolate and I think gives a complementary look to the more traditional biscuit. Perhaps I could start a new trend?

I'm a bit fussy about the cornflakes. They have to be crushed just right. Not too crumbly, not too large. For some reason I hate seeing whole flakes jutting out the biscuit but that's just me always trying to be perfect.

I had some leftover chocolate ganache so used that as topping (which I have to say was a particularly luxurious touch and very nice) but I've given the standard chocolate icing recipe below.  

 Makes about 16-18 biscuits depending on size.

Afghan Biscuits

200g butter, softened
90g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
175g (1 1/4 cups) standard flour
35g (1/4 cup) good quality cocoa powder
55g (1 1/2 cups) cornflakes, lightly crushed

Chocolate icing

1 1/2 cups icing sugar
60g butter
4 tbsp boiling water
1/4 cup cocoa

Walnut halves or coconut chips to decorate.


Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease or line a baking tray with baking paper.

In a cake mixer, beat the butter, sugar and vanilla until light and creamy.

Sift in the flour and cocoa and combine thoroughly. Stir in the cornflakes.

Place large tablespoonfuls onto the baking tray (I use a mini ice-cream scoop) and press each biscuit lightly with a fork to flatten slightly.

Bake for 15-20 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before icing.  

Icing

In a cake mixer, beat the icing sugar, butter and sifted cocoa together until smooth and ice the biscuits when they are cold. Decorate with a halved walnut or a couple of coconut chips.