Old World Biscuit Rolls

Guest Blogger: Renata Toth It was my birthday recently, so we had a little celebration at work. My colleagues prepared, as always, a plentiful choice of sweets. And I just had to contribute. As I have limited time in the evening, I chose a cake that is relatively quick, a little bit special, yet traditional, delicious and can be made in various ways. The recipe itself comes from an old Hungarian cookbook under the name of biscuit rolls, but we made some modifications to better fit our taste. The basic recipe is rather classic, but we boosted it with some rum or aroma, which gave it a tasty touch. For this recipe then we use: For the pastry: 250 gr ground dry cookies or biscuits 100 gr sugar 100 gr ground walnuts 1,5 dl dark coffee 1 sachet vanilla sugar Rum / aroma as and if desired For the chocolate filling: 100 gr butter 100 gr sugar 2 tsp cocoa powder rum / flavoring as desired. If you cannot buy cookies/biscuits already ground, be sure to grind them finely. Once they are ground, mix it with the other ingredients for the pastry, knead it until you obtain a homogenous and consistent mixture and stretch it evenly into a square shape. It is easier to stretch between two sheets of foil. For the filling, mix the butter, the sugar and the cocoa powder until it is consistent and fluffy. Spread it over the pastry, roll it up and if sticky, sprinkle the pastry with some ground walnuts. Cover it in foil and leave it rest for a few hours, or overnight, in the fridge, it will be easier to cut. It can be prepared with other fillings as well, or jams, whatever you can spread well over the delicate pastry. My first time in trying this recipe and it was a great big success! Of course, the recipe still can be modified or personalised to better fit your taste. You can add dried fruits to the cream, or into the pastry maybe, or add other flavorings instead of rum, use additional ingredients, or so. Feel free to experiment and be creative with this basic recipe! And enjoy! Join 100,000 worldwide subscribers at The Basic Art of Italian Cooking by Maria Liberati tm BLOG Get your copy of the Gourmand World Award Winning book The Basic Art of Italian Cooking: Holidays and Special Occasions-2nd edition