Chocolate Kissed Biscuits (Cookies)

What could be better than biscuits covered in chocolate with a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winters day. Every winter I make these and I can't get enough of them. Because I love chocolate so much I decided that I would like to try the chocolate version. I'm going to keep myself busy making these this coming weekend.

Don't make too many though otherwise you won't be able to keep your hand out of the biscuit tin. I always make and share with my friends and neighbours. You could use milk or dark chocolate with these but I prefer milk chocolate cause I find it not too overpowering. You don't need a lot of time to make these so they good for any day of the week. Bon Apetit!

Ingredients

225 g self-raising flour
90 g cocoa
30 g cornflour
225 g unsalted butter or margarine, softened
90 g icing sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
115 g chocolate, melted
icing sugar, for, dusting

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Grease 2 large baking sheets.
3. Into a bowl sift together the flour,cocoa and cornflour.
4. In another large bowl beat the butter and icing sugar until fluffy.
5. With the beater on low speed gradually add in the flour mixture and vanilla essence until it becomes a soft dough.
6. Shape into'bar' shapes about 10cm long by 5cm wide. Allow room for spreading. OR Fill a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe and pipe into finger shapes about 5 to 10 cm long. Allow room for spreading.
7. Bake about 15-20 minutes until light golden brown, rotating baking sheets at half-time to allow for even cooking.
8. Keep an eye on them as they should only be slightly firm and all ovens are different.
9. Leave to cool for about 5 minutes on the baking tray and then transfer to a wire rack and cool until firm.
10. Dip one end of each cookie into melted chocolate and place back onto greaseproof paper and allow chocolate to set. Alternatively you could dust with icing sugar
11. Store in container with waxed paper between layers.

There are so many ways that you could change the recipe to give you differnt varieties.

• You could leave out the cocoa to make them plain. Pipe rosettes instead of "fingers" and dip the bottom of the biscuits in chocolate. If you want to make them extra special you can place a small glaced cherry in the centre of the biscuit prior to baking.

• You could also mix chopped pecans into the dough and instead of piping roll into little "fingers". Dust them with icing sugar after they have baked.

• You could also pipe circles and place a little jam in the centre before baking. Dust with icing sugar after they have baked.

The possibilities are endless! Have fun.