Coffee Creams are my favourite biscuit.
Food, especially from our youth, can imprint some of the strongest memories we carry throughout our lives. Eating is a sensorial experience; entailing the use of all five of our senses.
Yes ALL five.
How do you hear food, you ask? How about the crunch of Pork Crackle!
This particular coffee creams recipe, given to me by my Nan, is one of my fondest food memories from my childhood.
My Nan was a very good cook. More often than not she stuck to traditional Australian fare: roasts, chops, soups and fresh vegetables. Yet it was her biscuits, and nonchalance to baking a batch, that she was synonymous.
From my Nan’s repertoire it was her signature biscuit, the Coffee Cream, that reign supreme.
They were baked endlessly when I was a kid. Each family occasion would warrant a batch; enough for the day and some for the bikkie tin to be eaten over the days to follow.
When my Nan was recovering from a hip replacement she wasn’t able to stand for long periods and found it difficult to bake. During this period a chair was relocated to the kitchen, were she would sit alongside my grandfather, Parp, guiding him through the baking process. Aside from a barbecue I can’t recall memories of Parp cooking; these biscuits became the exception. They held a place of significance on our family table. They were tradition; a representation of family and celebration.
It was actually my grandfather who, devoting regular time to the use of computers in order to ‘keep up’ with technology, originally typed this recipe and printed it out for me; converting imperial measurements to metric as he went.
In the original recipe that I was presented there was one critical detail absent, which I mention here because it is imperative to the final product that this is correct.
The recipe I was given called for the use of coffee essence in both the biscuit and the buttercream.
Missing from the recipe was the crucial detail that this essence MUST be (and I emphasise the word must as I have never produced the same biscuit using any alternative) Bushells Coffee & Chicory Essence.
This essence is available in most supermarkets across Australia, generally in the coffee aisle and not the baking aisle but this can change between locations.
If you are concerned about buying a full bottle of this essence when it is only called for in this single recipe, don’t be. Once you use this you will use it in any recipe that calls for coffee essence as it is far superior in flavour.
For international readers, I can’t speak to its availability or the quality of substitutes you may find locally.
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Equipment
- Electric Stand or Hand Mixer
Ingredients
Biscuit
- 125 g butter room temperature / cubed
- 90 g caster sugar
- 250 g self-raising flour
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp Bushells Coffee and Chicory Essence
Coffe Buttercream Icing
- 90 g icing sugar
- 45 g butter softened
- 1 tsp Bushells Coffee and Chicory Essence
Instructions
Biscuit
- Preheat fan forced oven to 180°C and line two biscuit trays with baking paper.
- Cream butter and sugar in a stand or hand mixer until pale in colour (approximately 3 minutes).125 g butter, 90 g caster sugar
- In a seperate bowl lightly beat egg with coffee and chicory essence.1 egg, 1 tsp Bushells Coffee and Chicory Essence
- Slow the mixer. Alternating, begin adding the flour and egg mixture to the mixer bowl, mixing well after each addition until all the flour and egg mixture is incorporated.250 g self-raising flour
- Remove bowl from the stand mixer and give a gentle stir to incorporate any remaining flour on the edges of the bowl.
- Using two teaspoons, scoop mixture with one spoon and then with the other spoon gently slide a teaspoon size dollop of mixture onto the biscuit tray. The biscuits will rise so don't place them to close together.
- Place tray in the middle rack of the preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes.
- Remove biscuits from oven, let cool on biscuit tray for a few minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely before icing.
Buttercream Icing
- Combine sugar, butter and coffee and chicory essence in a small bowl and mix well with a spoon, making sure all ingredients are combined and there are no lumps.45 g butter, 1 tsp Bushells Coffee and Chicory Essence, 90 g icing sugar
- Spread a teaspoon amount of icing sugar onto one biscuit with a knife. Take another biscuit of similar shape and size and sandwich them together gentle so as to evenly spread the buttercream.
Notes
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