Mocha Fingers

When I saw the photo of these Mocha Fingers in the Women's Weekly Bake book, I just had to make them. The chocolate cream oozing out of the two sandwiched chocolate biscuits just looked so tempting for this chocolate fan.

Having made them, I don't think I'll ever make them again. They were so tedious to make. As good as the biscuits look, they took so long and my patience was really wearing thin by the third hour (I made a double batch) when I had to keep taking the dough in and out of the fridge as it softened really quickly.

These biscuits taste ok, but weren't spectacular. The biscuit base had a nice mocha flavour to it and was ok on it's own. I thought the mocha custard would really lift the biscuit, but it didn't really work that well. These biscuits look fantastic as a gift as presented in the book stacked inside a clear container with a bow around the container. However, just as a biscuit to eat, it is too much effort for not enough reward for me.



Mocha Fingers
From Women's Weekly Bake
One batch makes 25 sandwiched biscuits

INGREDIENTS
1 tsp instant coffee
2 tsp boiling water
125g butter, softened
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cup plain flour
1/4 self-raising flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
75g roasted coffee beans

MOCHA CUSTARD
2 tbsp custard powder
2 tbsp caster sugar
60g dark chocolate roughly chopped
1 cup milk
1 tbsp coffee-flavoured liqueur

METHDO
1) Blend coffee water. Beat butter, sugar and egg until combined. Stir in coffee mixture, sifted flours and cocoa in two batches.

2) Knead dough on floured surface until smooth. Roll dough between sheets of baking paper until 4mm thick. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

3) Preheat oven to 160C. Grease oven trays and line with baking paper.

4) Make mocha custard.

5) Cut 8.5cm squares from dough. Halve squares to make 50 rectangles. Place on oven tray and press three coffee beans into every second rectangle.

6) Bake for about 12 minutes. Cool on wire racks. Spread custard over plain biscuits and top with coffee bean biscuit.

MOCHA CUSTARD METHOD
Blend custard powder, sugar and chocolate with milk in a small saucepan. Stir over heat until mixture boils and thickens. Remove from heat, stir in liqueur. Cover surface with plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold.