Tart London: How to make sandwich biscuits

Jemima Jones and Lucy Carr-Ellison offer a healthy update on a classic sweet treat from their childhood...
Lucy Carr-Ellison27 April 2017

It’s funny how the things your parents make you do as a family when you’re young, when you’d rather be with your friends, are the things you do for pleasure when you grow up: long muddy walks on Hampstead Heath, visits to art exhibitions or museums.

As children, such trips felt like boring chores. Our poor parents would have to put up with bratty tantrums as they dragged us out. But looking back, it wasn’t all bad, and that was mostly because of the ice cream van, whose nostalgic chimes would get all the neighbourhood children running out of their houses, and which would offer sweet treats as welcome consolation on long, tedious, wet walks. A favourite of ours was the ice cream sandwich. It was revolutionary — a complete game changer — and it would always put us in a good mood.

These sandwiches are a bit of a tweak on that classic. They’re something we love to eat mid-afternoon in the office, with a cup of tea and a bit of Magic Radio blasting out. Replacing the ice cream with homemade cashew-nut butter is a lovely, healthy alternative. Fingers are kept clean, and the sandwiches will last up to a week in the biscuit tin.

Making any kind of biscuits, including chocolate ones, shouldn’t be something we only do as children before relying on the supermarket selection as adults. They are so easy and enjoyable to bake at home — and you can ensure your own biscuits have just the right level of chewiness and crunch, plus plenty of your favourite ingredients.

Lucy had a little lamb: morning cuddles down at Hedgeley farm.

Ingredients

For the cashew-nut butter:

240g cashew nuts

1 tsp sea salt

1 tbsp maple syrup

For the biscuits:

125g butter, softened

125g coconut palm sugar or light muscovado sugar

1 egg, beaten

Pinch of sea salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

80g flour (we like using white spelt)

100g oats, blitzed to a powder in a food processor

1 tsp baking powder

150g chocolate, roughly chopped

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C. Put the cashews on a baking tray and toast for about 10 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool. Blitz in a food processor until you’ve got a smooth, creamy paste. Mix in the sea salt and maple syrup.

To make the biscuits, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy. Add the egg, salt and vanilla and mix until combined. In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, powdered oats and baking powder. Add the butter, sugar and egg mix, then fold in the chocolate.

Scoop out 14 balls of dough, about two inches in depth, and place on a lined baking tray, flattening each ball slightly. Bake for 15 minutes and leave to cool. Then simply sandwich them together with the nut butter. Voila: perfect after-school (or afternoon-in-the-office) treats!

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