Fancy little biscuit, I love the spiral design that is very inviting to have a bite on it. This is a simple biscuit that anyone can make at home. I keep these in an airtight biscuit tin for my pleasure of coffee and tea during the afternoon, as TV snack or a naughty midnight nibble!
- 275g cake flour (see substitute in Kitchen wisdom page)
- 1 tbsp vanilla sugar or 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 250g butter, softened
- 140g granulated sugar
- 2 egg yolks
- Grated rind of 1 lemon
- 2½ tbsps cocoa powder, sifted
- Grease a baking sheet and line it with non-stick baking paper.
- Sift the flour with the vanilla sugar (if using) on pastry board. Make a well in the centre. Place the butter in the well with the sugar, egg yolks, vanilla extract (if using) and the lemon rind. Knead the ingredients together quickly without overworking, and divide the dough into two equal portions. Incorporate the cocoa into one portion and work it in briefly.
- Wrap the two portions in aluminium foil and leave to rest in cool place, or in the least cold part of the refrigerator, for at least 1 hour.
- Roll out each piece into sheet a 3mm thick.
- Cut each sheet into rectangles of 20 x 10 cm. (You may need to cut one sheet 20cm x 10cm, then roll out what’s left to 3mm thick again, then cut another 20cm x 10cm sheet)
- You should now have 2 cocoa sheets and 2 plain sheets, 3mm thick, and 20 x 10 cm each.
- Place 1 chocolate rectangle on top of each plain rectangle, offsetting the top layer by 5 mm from the end at lengthways.
- Roll up the rectangles, quite tightly, to make a cylinder that will be 10cm long when rolled up.
- When rolled up, gently smooth the 3mm thick edge into the cylinder to make the cylinder nice and round.
- Wrap each cylinder in a sheet of aluminium foil and leave to rest in the least cold part of the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Remove from the refrigerator and unwrap.
- Gently cut the cylinders into 5 mm thick slices with a sharp knife.
- You should now have about 40 pieces of 5mm thick slices ready to be baked.
- Preheat your oven to 180°C
- Arrange the slices on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden.
- Remove them from the oven and leave to cool for a few minutes, then with a spatula, remove them carefully from the baking sheet and transfer to a wire rack until completely cool.
Andrews' Family Cookery & Household Management 
Thanks for putting this recipe in here. I had been thinking about this cookie lately. My Mom made them once when I was a kid. This wasn’t the kind of cookie she would normally make. It’s a little bit more involved and that’s probably why I never made it. But, seeing your’s, I think I’m up to the task. I actually like using recipes with grams because it’s such a challenge for us here in the States. And, there is nothing better than tea time (I acquired that from visiting England)!!! Now I’ll have something to go with it!!!
Hello, I’m glad you enjoy reading this recipe. Indeed this cookies does involve some extra work compared to those cut-off biscuit method. I do enjoyed it when I was a kids too, I felt like having it one more time like a kids, so I did it again.
I used to recipe with metrics measurement, I just confused with imperial measurement because dry and wet ingredient is a different in cup measurement, so I always convert them to metric if I found imperial measurement’s recipe. Tea time always is my favourite meal of the day, let’s have a cuppa. Hope you enjoy that, do “invite” me to your tea time after you done it recipe. Bon Appétit!