Serves: Makes about 25 - Time:
We know speculoos biscuits as Lotus biscuits, and in the UK the spread is marketed as Biscoff spread . When I lived in France it was all the rage- every manner of sweet things were flavoured with “speculoos”. The frozen food specialist Picard, I remember, made a very good speculoos ice cream. The spread has been available for a while over here and, while I find it a bit sweet on its own, I thought it might be rather good swirled into a dark chocolate brownie. It gives the brownies a delicious biscuity crust.
Ingredients
- 100g ground almonds
- 25g plain flour
- 30g cocoa powder, sifted
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 250g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
- 250g plain chocolate, 70% cocoa solids, roughly chopped
- 175g caster sugar
- 175g light muscovado sugar
- 4 medium eggs
- 170g Biscoff spread (speculoos spread)
Method
- Heat the oven to 180˚c, fan oven 160˚c , mark 4. Grease and base-line a 9in x 9in tin with non-stick baking parchment. In a small bowl mix together the ground almonds, flour, cocoa powder and baking powder.
- Place the butter and chocolate in a saucepan and melt over a very low heat. Do not let it boil. Take off the heat and leave until it reaches blood temperature –i.e. when you dip in a finger there is no discernible heat.
- Place both the sugars and eggs in a large mixing bowl and whisk on high speed for at least 5 minutes until the mixture is really thick and pale. Carefully fold in the chocolate mixture followed by the almond mixture. Pour into the prepared tin.
- Heat the Biscoff spread in the microwave for about 10-15 seconds and pour over the batter. Swirl it around with a skewer or spoon handle. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes until the brownies are just setting in the centre. Leave to cool and firm up- preferably overnight- before cutting into squares.
