Chocolate, prune and rum biscuits

Bourke Street Bakery opened in Marrickville the perfect distance from my house a few months before I left. It was within walking distance, but not too close that I could just duck out for a brulee tart or chocolate croissant whenever I felt the urge, which was altogether too often. Last spring made itself known to me one Sunday morning sitting outside BSB on milk crates, and one particularly horrible day was lightened by a snap decision to stop by around closing time.

It was cold and I was walking aimlessly and so was after something portable and sweet. The chocolate and sour cherry biscuits caught my eye, and the lovely lady who served me must have known that I needed cheering up, and gave me an extra plate sized biscuit for free. Yet another reason to love this place.

The lovely Bourke Street Bakery cookbook was released not long before I left Australia. Every time I saw it I had to list the reasons why I couldn’t buy it: no money, leaving the country in a matter of days, uncertainty about the possibility of international baking, baggage already overweight. Reason won out in the end, and enough time has now passed that these biscuits no longer taste of terrifying resentment and hurt from that miserable day last winter. Actually the whole flavour profile has changed as I was unable to find sour cherries here. I replaced them with some delicious dry prunes soaked in rum that, when baked, are soft and yielding in the middle and wonderfully chewy at the edges. The prunes make these wonderful biscuits even richer, an easy substitution for a rare ingredient.

Chocolate, prune and rum biscuits
Adapted from the chocolate and sour cherry biscuits in Bourke Street Bakery by Paul Allam & David McQuinness via Almost Bourdain.

Prunes must be soaked ahead of time, please take this into consideration when making these biscuits.

235 g dark chocolate, chopped
150 g (1 cup) plain flour
40 g (1/3 cup) unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
100 g  unsalted butter
240 g soft brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup chopped prunes soaked overnight in 3T dark rum.

- Preheat the oven to 165C.
- Melt chocolate in a large stainless stell bowl over a pan of simmering water. Remember that the bowl must not touch the water.
- Meanwhile, sift flour, cocoa powder, bicarb soda and salt into a separate bol.
- Cream butter and sugar together until light and pale and the sugar has dissolved. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly between each addition. Fold in the dry ingredients in three batches, mixing lightly until combined before adding more.
- Stir the melted chocolate through the batter.
- Fold the prunes through the batter
- Refrigerate the mixture for about 15 minutes or until set.
- When the mixture is firm enough to deal with place small balls (about 1 tablespoons each) of the mix evenly spaced on baking paper lined trays. These biscuits will spread a lot. (The original recipe calls for 3 tablespoons per biscuit, which is fine if you want to make plate sized sweets, mine were much smaller).
- Refrigerate the trays of raw dough for a further 30 minutes or until firmed up.
- Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes each or until risen and cracked on top (Mine didn’t crack much, but in my impatience I didn’t cool the mixture as much as I could have and my biscuits were comparatively very small). Cool completely on trays.