THE KITCHEN : SHORTBREAD CRESCENTS
my grandma would make these a lot when i was a kid, i used to love visiting her and my grandpa in their bungalow, sitting down with my grandpa and learning how to play chess. we’d both have a hot drink, and my grandma would bring out her biscuit tin (which she still has to this day) it’d always be a treat if her crescents were inside. my grandma is now 94, and still going strong on a diet of tea and biscuits! i’m sure her insides are preserved from sugar… her other favourite biscuit is a chocolate ginger, so i decided to do half of the batch from this recipe dunked in dark salty chocolate and embellished with stem ginger. these are so so easy and bloody delicious.
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INGREDIENTS
180 grams plain flour
125 grams butter
60 grams ground almonds
55 grams caster sugar
2 tbspn cold water
1 bar of your prefered dark choc (100 grams)
2 chunks of stem ginger (in syrup from a jar)
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preheat your oven to 180’c (fan oven), and line a baking tray with baking paper.
in a large mixing bowl weigh out your flour, cube your butter and add to your bowl of flour. with your finger tips, blend the butter through the flour until you reach a grainy, sand like texture. try to do this gently so your dough doesn’t get over worked, it should be a fairly even consistency, without any bigger lumps of butter. add your sugar and your ground almonds, blend gently with a spoon or your fingers. add your cold water, mix through with a spoon and then bring together with your hands.
your dough should just come together, gently compress the dough on a clean surface and roll into a large, smooth ball. cut your big dough ball into quarters, roll those quarters into four balls, and cut each into quarters again, you should now have 12 cut pieces of dough. roll each piece into a ball before using your palm to gently roll each piece into a sausage. they should be around 1.5cm thick and about 12cm long, bend into a crescent shape and arrange on your baking tray with enough space between each for them to get a little bigger whilst in the oven.
bake for 10 minutes, rotate your tray in the oven and then bake for a further 7-8 mins until they are a pale golden colour and firm to the touch. remove your crescents from the oven, gently lift your baking paper onto a cooling rack and leave to cool completely.
whilst your biscuits are cooling, blitz up a few tablespoons of granulated sugar in a spice blender or pestle and mortar until you have powdered sugar. once you’re biscuits are totally cool, dust your powdered sugar over the crescents. if you’re going for a classic, simple crescent you’re good to go, enjoy! if you’re looking for a level up, read on…
take your chunks of stem ginger from the jar and finely dice. in a glass bowl over a saucepan of warm water, melt your chocolate gently, adding knobs of butter as you stir to get the perfect glossy consistency. one melted and runny, take a crescent at a time and dunk into your chocolate, let the excess drip back into the bowl, set your dunked crescent onto the baking paper and scatter your ginger jewels on top. repeat until all of your crescents look irresistible! allow to dry and then get stuck in… if you have any leftovers store in an air tight container.