Tea and chocolate, like coffee and chocolate, are a winning flavour pairing for the subtle bitterness tea adds to the complex cocoa notes. I have nothing else to say other than I can happily eat these by the bucket-load. Enjoy!
RECIPE:
ORANGE ASSAM CHANTILLY
600ml DOUBLE CREAM
5 ASSAM TEA BAGS (Akin to cooking wine, if you wouldn’t drink it, don’t use it for baking)
PEEL OF 1 LARGE ORANGE
100g ICING SUGAR (Can be swapped for other sugars, how about light brown for a some bitter molasses/caramel notes?)
JUICE OF 1 LARGE ORANGE
COCOA SABLE BISCUIT
220g PLAIN FLOUR
30g COCOA POWDER
100g ICING SUGAR
2g SALT
200g UNSALTED BUTTER (Cold and Cubed, our last example, will we miss it?)
40g EGG WHITE(Approx. 1 Egg White and wah annoyingly we will have to weight it for this recipe. Too little and the dough will be too dry to roll out nicely and nothing will be worth anything)
MARMELADE (Optional- It adds a bitterness which may not be welcome to all)
BEFORE YOU START…
Preheat your oven to 170c (170c fan oven, 180c for other, less powerful ovens)
Grease and line two baking trays with parchment
METHOD:
FOR THE ORANGE ASSAM CHANTILLY…
Heat the cream, tea and orange peel together until lightly steaming. Leave to cool completely before removing the tea and peel and refrigerate until cold. Once chilled, whip the infused cream with the icing sugar and orange juice until stiff peaks.
FOR THE COCOA SABLE BISCUIT…
Mix the dry ingredients together until evenly combined. Sand in the butter until you have the texture of fine breadcrumbs.
Add the egg white and mix together until it starts to come together as a dough (be wary to overmix at this stage THE BUTTER WILL MELT AND YOU’LL BE LEFT WITH A MESSY DOUGH WHICH SCREAMS FOR MORE FLOUR BUT YOU MUST IGNORE THE SCREAMS).
Finish by mixing on the counter until smooth. Wrap in clingfilm and rest in the fridge for half an hour. Once rested roll your dough to the width of a penny (about 1 cm, pennies don’t really exist now do they?) and cut into biscuit shapes, any or choosing, just making sure they can be paired off for our stacks later on…
Rest one final time in the fridge (for an hour this time, to ensure the dough doesn’t spread when baking)
Bake for 10-12minutes until you smell the cocoa and the biscuits look dry. Leave to cool completely.
TO ASSEMBLE: Whip you infused chantilly until it holds its shape. Pair up you biscuits and pipe the cream on one half of the pair before topping with the second and dusting with icing sugar. Serve immediately (These do keep in the fridge for a day or so but the biscuits will soften – not unpleasant but perhaps not the best they can be)
