Caramel Biscuits

These are delicious little biscuits, another from the Hairy Bikers book of baking. They are relatively simple to make, don't be too daunted by the caramel, its surprisingly easy.

The only thing that I would not do, that the recipes suggests, is flattening your biscuits before they go in the oven. As they spread. A lot. I reckon they will flatten and spread by themselves without any help before they go in the oven.

So although my biscuits spread a little too much (thank heavens for palette knives or they would still be on the baking sheet!) and certainly will not win any prizes in a beauty contest they do taste divine. Crunchy caramel on the very edges of the biscuit and soft chewy caramel within the biscuit itself. These are just lovely. 

Caramel Biscuits

50g caster sugar

tbsp water

150g caster sugar (I used 100g caster and 50g light brown sugar thanks to not buying caster sugar)

125g butter

150g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

First make the caramel, heat the sugar and water over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved. Then turn up the heat and allow to simmer gently, without stirring, until the sugar turns a golden brown caramel colour.

Pour the caramel onto a baking sheet lined with baking parchment and tilt the tray so that a nice even layer of caramel forms. It does not matter what shape it is, it will be broken up. Mine looks like some sort of amoeba. Leave the caramel to harden and cool for at least 15 minutes. DO NOT TOUCH HOT SUGAR!

Preheat the oven to 180/160 fan

Cream together the butter and sugar with a wooden spoon until light and creamy. 

Add in the flour and baking powder and stir to combine. 

Take the cooled caramel and snap/bash into small (3-5mm) pieces and stir in to the dough. 

You will most likely need to bring the dough together with your hands, it is very short and crumbly.

Roll the dough into balls and place onto baking sheets lined with baking parchment. Makes sure they are placed well apart as they will spread a lot during baking. I found the dough was a little short to roll really well so I used a tbsp to scoop up balls of dough and gently deposited them on the sheets.

The recipe says to flatten the balls to 1cm thick but I would not recommend doing this as they spread really thin, maybe just a little squish with your hands to secure them to the sheet is best.

Cook for 10-12 minutes until golden.

Leave to firm up on the sheets then transfer the biscuits to a wire rack to cool