I was really hoping to post something “Swedish” today, but in reading up about biskvi, I discovered that apparently they were first made in France, at the end of the 19th century. That said, I’ve never seen them in France, nor have I seen anything really like it outside of Sweden, so I’m going to go ahead and introduce these Chocolate Biskvi as hailing from this country.
They couldn’t be easier to make, although one of the main ingredients might not be widely available everywhere. Almond Paste — mandelmassa in Swedish — isn’t that common in other countries I’ve found. Don’t confuse it with marzipan. While similar, almond paste is usually much looser in consistency. If you’re unable to find it then I would recommend using marzipan, but run it through a food processor with a little bit of sunflower or canola oil. You should achieve a similar result, with the benefit of being able to skip the first step (grating the paste) of the recipe below.
Chocolate Biskvi truly are things which could benefit from an artistic touch. Don’t get me wrong — I love everything about these things — but they’re a bit plain looking, especially when they’re made by someone like me with my sausage fingers and big clumsy man-hands.
I also managed to briefly forget that I’m using a different type of oven and didn’t adjust the temperature accordingly, so the outsides were a bit… crispy… in places. Don’t worry – as long as you follow the instructions below you’ll be right as rain!
Here comes the sun…
Yes, in case you were wondering, that is indeed a beautiful, golden ray of sunshine kissing the sides of the chocolate biskvi above. After a rather mild and short winter, it now seems that spring is on the way. The ice is melting, the front yard is no longer a skating rink (nor is the road surface for that matter) and the days are getting longer and brighter. Now that is something to celebrate!
Chocolate Biskvi
Ingredients
For the bases300g Almond Paste
- 1 Egg White
For the filling100g Butter at room temperature
- 50 g Icing Sugar
- 3 tsps Vanilla Sugar
- 3 tsps Cocoa Powder
For the coating100g good quality Plain Chocolate
- 1 tbsp Butter
You'll also need~10g Plain Flour (or GF flour if you need this dish to be Gluten Free)
Instructions
- Start off by preheating your oven to 190 degrees Celsius (170 degrees fan) and then finely grate the almond paste for the bases.
- Place into a large bowl and mix well with the egg white to form a thick batter.
- Divide the batter out into 15 equal pieces and drop each separate amount onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper.
- Dust your hands with the flour and flatten each pile of batter down to form a neat round disc, about 5cm in diameter. Place into the oven and bake for about 10 minutes, until just starting to colour.
- Remove the bases from the oven and allow to cool for a couple of minutes before gently removing them from the baking paper. Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool completely.
- In a bowl, beat together the butter, icing sugar, vanilla sugar and cocoa powder for the filling until you have a thick, even paste. Once the bases have cooled, turn them upside down and divide the filling between each base, dropping a good blob into the middle and flattening gently. Place into the refrigerator and allow to set for at least an hour.
- Using a water bath, gently melt the chocolate for the coating, stirring well while melting. Once ready, add in the butter and mix in well. Remove the chocolate from the heat and then take the cooled biskvi. Dip them - filling side down - into the melted chocolate, turning gently to ensure even coating.
- Set the biskvi base side down onto a tray or plate and allow the chocolate to set before enjoying.
Notes
I’m glad to hear that the sun has come out in your corner of the world as well. We had snow on March 12 and are supposed to have some on the 22nd of March. Amazing … and NOT in a good way.
If France has abandoned its rights to these cookies there’s no reason you can’t adopt them for Sweden. And if Italy can name one of THEIR biscuits “Brutti ma buoni” which means ‘ugly but good’ you can be proud of your non-pretty treat. Not that they’re that bad looking. 🙂
I’ve never used marzipan in my cooking, nor, needless to say, your mandelmass. The closest I’ve gotten is ‘frangipane’. Maybe one day I’ll give these biscuits a try.
Pah, just when I thought “Spring” was on the way, we get dumped on by a massive cloud and 15cm of snow or so. Crazy, and it arrived so quickly!
Love that there’s a cookie called “brutti ma buoni”… haha, that’s something I’m going to have to look up.
I like your clumsy man-hands…and your “ugly” biskvi. If there is anything I learned from the pretty cakes in the French bakeries, it’s that we eat with our mouths… not, as people would have it, our eyes. So many pretty “shells” hiding burnt or stale cake.
Jeez, do you remember that disgusting burnt piece of crap from the place in Vélizy which they’d dusted with icing sugar? It looked so moist and then I got it home and it was the dryest, most foul-tasting thing I’ve ever had. Your “fig” cake wasn’t much better. Margarine-flavour – yum!
That really is a lovely looking little treat Charles. The butter cream looks like it sets quite solid, is that the case? I know I would love this treat because I adore chocolate and almonds! The video is also very nice, what is the music playing in the background — sounds cool.
Glad to hear spring is on its way for you guys, it’s been slow and laborious over here in fact, we had -10°C with a windchill which made it feel like -20°C here yesterday. Today the high was -5°C which is in the right direction. I just hope we’ll be done with this soon, so tired of it!
Hi Eva – quite solid… I wouldn’t say so. I mean, it’s not “moussey”, but you don’t need to make any effort to bite into it, that’s for sure!
The music (excuse the copy-pasta from the YouTube video description):
Main theme: But It Did
Artist: Josh Woodward (joshwoodward.com)
Album: Dirty Wings
Original track URL: http://www.joshwoodward.com/song/ButItDid
Licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license (CCBY30)
You know, I really thought Spring was on its way. We got 15cm of snow suddenly last night which was fun to wake up to, especially since I needed to drive somewhere.
Almond paste and chocolate…two of my favorite sweet things in one cookie. What’s not to love? And I think your “man hands” did quite a nice job on these, Charles. I’d love to have one or two for dessert or with my coffee! 🙂
PS, I love the new look of your blog and the new logo.
Hehe, thanks Betsy. I think I need to be in the mood for “daintiness”. When I want to I can get quite fancy with a piping gun or whatever, but sometimes I’m just thinking that it’s easy to dunk thinks straight into a load of molten chocolate 😀
Ha ha ha, sausage finger? Anyway, this looks so good. The video(?) is also nice.
Thanks! Haha, yeah, I was bummed – can’t believe I “lost” my tripod. Found it again now though so next time I’ll actually be able to do a “real” video 🙂
Good golly – these look totally delish! Absolutely nothing “plain looking” bout these mounds of chocolate and almond paste! WOW!
Thanks Shashi! 🙂
I’m not familiar with a lot of baking ingredients, but I wonder if we have “Almond paste” in the US. As long as I know, it’s my first time hearing it (or at least paying attention to this ingredient as your cookies look so good!). These look delicious! And I’m happy for your sunshine in the background! 😉
Hi Nami, Nazneen mentioned below that you can get it in the US. It’s an import from a Danish company called “Odense”, so now you have no excuse not to make some 😀
I’m so glad your winter is on it’s way out. I’m sure it’s time for you to enjoy some sunshine and longer days. These biscuits look gorgeous. I love anything with almond paste and thankfully, it’s easy to source here in Sydney xx
Well, I thought it was – and then I wake up this morning to 15cms of snow all banked up everywhere. Really heavy stuff too… took me ages to swoop it all off my car!
You guys had a short and mild winter? Wow! Not here. I’m sure you’ll welcome spring though. It’s going to be a fun year experiencing all the firsts of each season and what it will bring. And you cracked me up with the sausage finger comment! I would likely be the same way. I don’t quite have the delicate touch to make things look pretty. While you know I likely wouldn’t eat these chocolate beauties, the kids sure would! I bet William enjoyed them for sure. 🙂
Well, we woke up to a load of snow everywhere which took ages to sweep off my car because it was so thick and heavy!
Trying not to give Willy too much “bad” stuff at the moment since he’s a little tub. Need to try and get him onto vegetables! 😀
These look like a lovely treat, Charles. It is not hard to make almond paste if you have access to almonds: you will find several easy recipes if you Google it, so no one need go without it to make biskvi. Happy Spring a few days early.
Hi Sharyn, I guess it’s probably not. I made almond butter before and you probably stop during one of the grind-down stages, add some sugar and some sort of… binder.
Happy spring to you too, although it doesn’t feel like it here. Woke up to a load of snow this morning!
Oh these look so delicious! I would love to be having one of these with my coffee they look so good! LOL that these were French but no one makes them any more… I hope you don’t start a diplomatic situation 😉
Hehe, I couldn’t believe it… I’ve always associated them with 100% Swedishness!
Listening to you on the video, you sound a lot like my brother, you even have the same cadence! Both of you would make great announcers. I often think about making videos but my voice and accent are horrendous now, a mixture of British and Southern American! I’ts all very confusing to people who hear me for the first time!
Ugly or not, these look wonderful! Everything to love about almonds and chocolate. I have seen almond paste here, it’s an import from a Danish company, I believe, called Odense (if you want to tell your US readers)They have marzipan and also paste. So, I’m all set to make these 🙂 Glad to know spring is on its way for you. We had blowing snow yesterday, but our grass is green so maybe that’s a good sign.
Heh, now I have to hear a clip of your brother’s voice! Don’t leave me hanging! Otherwise it’ll be like this woman I met who was so shocked because I looked exactly like her brother and she said she’d send me a pic… and never did :(.
Odense… heh, I think we have the same brand in Sweden. It’s a town in Denmark, in case you didn’t know. I stayed there overnight on my road-trip to Sweden!
OMG – you’re getting some sun!!!! I am such a sun worshiper that I don’t think I could live in a place that had months during which there was no sun. But I’m old. 🙂 These cookies are GREAT! What a perfect way to celebrate the coming of spring.
Yeah, everything was looking all set for Spring… and then I woke up this morning to a evil sky and a mountain of snow… heavy sigh!
Happy first day of spring! Glad the sun is coming out for you. These biscuits look scrummy! Would go well with a latte or cappuccino.
Thanks Jean! Woke up this morning to a big pile of snow alas and no sun in sight, but that just makes these all the more enjoyable with some hot coffee, right?!
Here comes the sun. I’m not sure how I’d cope with such long days during the winter. You seem to be coping just fine so maybe there’s nothing to worry about. One or two of these cookies and I wouldn’t think about being in the dark.
Ah, I think you’d get used to it, although it takes some time to adapt if you’re not accustomed to it, that’s for sure!
Hi Charles, that close up of your chocolate biskvi is pure torture for me as we do not have one drop of chocolate in this house. It is good to know that these can be frozen as the humidity in HK is so high at the moment that even a fresh baked loaf of bread if not eaten in one day will go bad. However, who is kidding who like these would last more than 24 hours in my house full of hungry teenagers. Have a super weekend. BAM
Not a drop of chocolate in the whole house? My goodness… what a terrible state of affairs. I hope you were able to resolve that unfortunate incident shortly after your comment 😀
For us too spring is here……but we are already getting ready to be dumped on by another snowstorm that is threatening hurricane like winds. The biskvi looks mouthwatering!
Thanks Minnie! I hope your storm wasn’t too bad.
I don’t know, man-hands or not, these look pretty delectable to me. I especially like that second shot, the way the chocolate droops just right over the top :0), very appealing. The sliced shot also reveals a generous layer of chocolate as it should be ;-). Yeah, the oven we are using here is the hottest I have ever experienced and I’m constantly forgetting that too (argh, it can lead to some unintended results) — my nose usually alarms me before the oven bell! Lovely new design and layout on your site Charles. Your logo is fun too – clear (discernible) and eye catching. Very nice.
Speaking of “man-hands”… you should have seen the photo of my son the other day. Giant, chunky hands grasping his piece of chicken :D.
Based on what I’ve heard from various Food blogger groups, apparently you can get your oven “recalibrated”. Might be something to look into if you find it’s running a bit hot?!
These look delicious, I love almond paste and chocolate!
They were great!
Hi there,
Can peanut butter replace the almond paste? I would use almond paste, but where I live it is like $10 for a small tube of it, same with the actual almonds.
Hi Victoria – to be honest, I’d say not… they’re quite different in texture… and certainly flavour. You could certain;y give it a try… who knows, perhaps it would be amazing (let me know if so!). How about marzipan? Are you able to get that at a reasonable price? If so you could use that in a similar way… grate it and blend it out with a bit of oil and use it in the same way… the results should be the same!