Lana's coffee and walnut biscuits

Darina Allen writes 'Lana Pringle lives at the other side of our village in an enchanting cottage with a huge open fireplace. She makes all her cakes by hand - each and every bite is truly memorable'.

I must agree with Darina. This is a good biscuit, from the consistency to the flavour of the combo. Bake it!

Serves: 8 biscuits.

Ingredients:

• 175g plain flour
• 75g butter
• 50g sugar
• 1 egg, whisked
• 8 walnut halves to decorate
• For the coffee filling:
• 25g butter
• 50g icing sugar, sieved
• 1 tsp espresso (Darina asks for 1 tsp coffee essence)
• For the coffee icing:
• 110g icing sugar, sieved
• 3 tsp espresso (Darina asks for ½ tsp coffee essence + 1 tbsp boiling water)

Method:

1. Sieve the flour into a bowl. Rub in the butter, add the sugar and mix well. 
   
   
   
   
2. Mix the dry ingredients to a stiff dough with the whisked egg.
   
3. Turn onto a floured board and roll out to a 2.5mm thickness and cut into 8.5cm rounds. Around 10 years ago I attended a cake decoration class and the teacher said that the best spacers to get this thickness were the Starbucks' coffee stirrers. I clearly remember popping into Starbucks to 'steel' a couple but couldn't find them anywhere. I used instead my 5mm spacers and then rolled the dough a bit more to get a thinner biscuit. This is by no means ideal as the biscuits are likely not to be the same thickness and I ended up with 7 instead of 8 biscuits. Annoyingly, 2 days later I remembered where I had stored the Starbucks' spacers!!! 
   
4. Bake until golden brown at 180°C, about 8 min. I actually baked them for 10 min.
   
   
   
   
5. Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool.
   
   
6. Make the coffee filling:
1. Cream the butter, then add the icing sugar and coffee. Continue to whisk until light and fluffy.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Before you sandwich the biscuits, pair them. This is a handmade product, thus it is very unlikely that the biscuits are exactly the same rounded shape. Pair the biscuits that have a similar shape and you'll end up with better looking biscuits. 
   
3. Sandwich the biscuits together with the coffee filling. Divide the coffee filling between the biscuit halves. This way you know they will be equally filled.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

1. Make the icing:
1. Put the sieved icing sugar in a bowl, add the coffee and whisk to a thick cream consistency. Whisk until smooth and glossy.
   
   
   
   
2. Spread a little coffee icing on the top of the biscuits.
   
2. Decorate each biscuit with a walnut half. We buy walnut pieces as they are cheaper and 9 out of 10 times you don't need them halved anyway. I searched in the bag for similar quarters that looked like halves when paired.