Chocolate melting moments and birthdays

It’s the Boy’s birthday tomorrow. Every year I labour over what to buy him – whether he will like this gadget, or approve of that shirt. This year, I’ve gone for something different. He has far too many gadgets and says he doesn’t need any more shirts, so I’ve gone for something completely, outrageously odd. If I had to title it, I would call it “for the man who has everything.” I love it, so I hope he does too. Keep an eye on the blog, I may post pictures of it if he approves!

Being unemployed and slightly short of money, the majority of my present is going to come to him in the form of food. He wants a big salad for dinner and a sponge cake for his birthday cake.

I don’t love making sponge cakes, I find them temperamental and disobedient…he says he doesn’t mind if I don’t make a sponge though, he knows how much I enjoy making deliciously dense chocolate cakes!

The Boy doesn’t enjoy birthdays. He’d never had anyone even make him a birthday cake before I met him! I’m the birthday police. I love everything about them. I love balloons, confetti, cake, lollies, present giving, singing, party hats, crowds…the lot. So I try to make sure that his birthday is a big deal every year. He’s 24 this year, he says it’s not a big deal; I beg to differ.

To kick off his birthday festivities this year, I’m sending him off to work with some melting moments. I’ve already posted a recipe for vanilla melting moments here, but this recipe appeals to my inner chocoholic.

Chocolate melting moments:

• 250g butter
• 2/3 cup icing sugar
• 1 1/3 cup plain flour
• 1/3 cup cornstarch
• 1/2 cup cocoa

Vanilla filling:

• 40g butter
• 1/3 cup icing sugar, sifted
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 tsp milk

Preheat your oven to 180°C and line a large tray with baking paper.

Cream together your butter (make sure it’s room temperature) and icing sugar until smooth and creamy – it should change in colour slightly.

Add the cocoa, plain flour and cornstarch into the butter mixture and mix until you get a soft dough. It kind of looks like mousse, it’s light and smooth and delicious (seriously, this mixture is addictive.)

Measure out heaped teaspoonfuls of mixture and roll them into small balls, lining them up on the baking paper about 2cm apart as you go. Don’t worry if the balls aren’t perfect, they’ll smooth out when they’re in the oven.

When you have a tray full of soft doughy spheres, grab a fork and use it to lightly flatten them, pressing a pattern into them as you go. To avoid messing up the pattern or the smooth dough, pressed the fork down and then slowly pull it back towards yourself.

Pop the chocolate spheres in the oven for 12-15 minutes.

I’d recommend making the vanilla filling while they’re in the oven. Simply beat the butter and icing sugar together, then add the vanilla and milk.

Take the biscuits out of the oven and leave them on the tray for a few minutes to harden. The biscuits won’t harden completely, because they’re soft biscuits by nature, but allow them a few minutes to compose themselves before transferring them onto a wire rack to cool.

Once the biscuits are completely cool, spread a teaspoon of vanilla filling onto one biscuit and sandwich it with a second. Try to make sure that you pair biscuits that are of a similar size for the sake of consistency.

You can substitute the vanilla filling with anything – I love the idea of choc-raspberry, or choc-mint…there are so many possibilities!

You should get about 28 individual biscuits, which will make 14 melting moments. You might want to double this recipe though, they don’t last long!