Chocolate cups

Makes about 12

Preparation time 10 minutes, plus cooling time

Baking time 12 – 15 minutes

You need

• 170 g softened butter

• 1 cup caramel sugar

• 1 egg

• 3 ml vanilla essence

• 2 cups cake flour

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 2 tablespoons custard powder • 70 g chocolate, chopped very finely (or grated)

• melted chocolate and ice cream, to serve

Here’s how

1 Cream the butter and sugar together until the mixture is a light colour – use a wooden spoon or an electric mixer. Mix in the egg and vanilla essence. Sieve the flour, baking powder and custard powder into the mixture and add the chocolate. Mix the ingredients with your hands until you have a smooth dough. Shape the dough into a flat disc, cover it with wax paper and put it in the fridge for half an hour.

2 Preheat the oven to 180° C. Dust a clean work surface with flour and roll the dough out until it’s about 5 mm thick. Use a palette knife to loosen the dough from the work surface before cutting out dough circles big enough to cover the outside of the muffin pan.

3 Grease the underside of a muffin pan with cooking spray and shape the cut circles carefully over the mould, pressing down to form a smooth surface. (I used a cookie cutter with a 12 cm diameter, but you can use any size as long as your circles fit over the cups.)

4 Bake the biscuits for 12 – 15 minutes or until cooked. Let them cool down before you carefully lift them off the muffin cups and onto a cooling rack to set.

5 Brush melted chocolate on the inside of the cups (this will prevent them from becoming soggy) and serve with your favourite ice cream.

The chocolate splinters need to be as finely chopped as possible. Bigger pieces of chocolate will melt and cause the cups to crack in the oven. If you don’t have time to make cups, use the dough to make balls. Put the balls on a baking sheet and flatten them with a fork before baking.

(Be careful not to push it all the way through!)

3 Bake the biscuits for about 10 minutes or until they only just retain their shape. Remove the baking sheets from the oven and cool the biscuits on a wire rack.

4 Fill the biscuits with the chocolate spread and store them in an airtight container.

Put a sheet of wax paper between the layers of biscuits in the container. This will prevent the chocolate spread from sticking to the other biscuits. You can also use melted chocolate instead of chocolate spread and just dip the biscuits in the chocolate once they’ve cooled down (no need to make holes).