Mocha Mallow Tea Cakes
Ingredients
Makes 12
You will need a set of silicone dome moulds (around 7cm diameter) - these can be found relatively cheaply online from places such as Amazon!
If you are not a coffee lover, feel free to leave it out - it still works!
Chocolate Biscuits:
- 120g unsalted butter (softened)
- 55g caster sugar
- 135g plain flour
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 tsp vanilla paste or essence
- Pinch of salt
Coffee Marshmallow:
- 3 large eggs whites
- 150g caster sugar
- 2 tbsp instant coffee powder - Nescafe Azera works well, if you don't have this, try and grind the coffee granules to get them as small as possible to help them dissolve so you don't get grainy marshmallow!
- 6 tsp golden syrup
- Pinch of salt
Chocolate Coating:
- 400g good quality milk or dark chocolate
Method
Chocolate Biscuits:
- With a wooden spoon or mixer, mix together the butter and sugar
- Add the cocoa powder, salt, vanilla and flour.
- Rub the ingredients together with the tips of your fingers until it comes together into a dough.
- Roll it into a ball, wrap in cling film and rest in the fridge for half an hour while you carry on with the other elements!
- Once ready, roll the dough onto a lightly floured worktop until it is around 3/4 cm thick - they might spread very slightly and you don't want a thin biscuit base!
- Use a small circular cutter to cut out at least 12 biscuits (you might have enough to make a few spare!). Make sure you test the cutter against your mould and know that the biscuit will fit inside! I used one that was around 5cm diameter.
- Place the biscuit circles on a lined baking tray and return to the fridge for around another 20 minutes - by chilling the dough you reduce the amount the biscuits will spread in the oven!
- Meanwhile pre-heat the oven to 170 C (fan).
- Once the dough is ready, bake for around 10 minutes until slightly darker around the edges and then remove from the oven and allow them to cool fully.
- They will seem very soft when they come out the oven but the with crisp up as they cool!
Chocolate Moulds:
- Whilst you are waiting for your dough to chill, prepare your moulds with chocolate.
- Melt 300g of your chocolate either in the microwave in short bursts or in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, and then spoon around a tablespoon of melted chocolate into each mould.
- Use the back of the spoon to spread it around each dome, ensuring that you bring the chocolate right up to the edge.
- You will notice that gravity causes the chocolate to pool in the middle of the dome, and the chocolate is thinner around the edge. What I do is once they are all covered, place in the fridge for a few minutes so the thinnest parts of the chocolate harden. I then use a pastry brush to spread the pooled, still melted chocolate around. I then add some extra chocolate to the edges where the chocolate is thinner to reinforce the sides. When you pop the teacakes out of the mould, the whole of the dome needs to be fully covered in chocolate or they won't work and the last thing you want is for the chocolate to be so thin that they break!
- Once all of the domes have been thoroughly coated, return to the fridge until it is time to assemble.
Coffee Marshmallow:
- In a bowl, mix the egg whites, coffee powder, sugar, salt and golden syrup, giving it a light whisk.
- Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water without letting the bottom touch the water and let the mixture reach 71 C so the eggs are pasteurised, ensuring you stir/whisk so that you don't let the mixture cook and get scrambled eggs!
- Once it has reached this temperature, transfer to a standing mixer, or use a hand held mixer to whisk for around 7 or 8 minutes, until the marshmallow is completely cool and it has reached stiff peaks - you want to ensure it is not too runny and will hold it's shape in the teacakes!
- Once it is ready, transfer to a piping bag, ready to assemble!
Assembling the teacakes:
- Melt the remaining 100g of chocolate and leave to cool slightly so it is not too hot.
- Pipe the coffee marshmallow into the chocolate moulds, leaving enough room for the biscuits.
- Carefully place a biscuit on top of the marshmallow in each mould
- Cover each biscuit in a layer of chocolate, and fill in any gaps so that the marshmallow and biscuit are completely sealed in the moulds. Try to ensure there is not too much excess chocolate around the sides of the moulds as this will make them neater when you pop them out!
- Place in the fridge until set.
- Once set, carefully pop the teacakes out of their moulds and tuck in!
*please note that the chocolate may bloom if the teacakes get put back in the fridge once they have been popped out of their moulds and reached room temperature - they are still fine to eat, but to avoid this, keep them at room temperature one they have set!
Head to my Instagram highlights @alice.fevronia for a video on how to make these, and if you give them a go, please tag me, I would love to see!
