Globecooking recipe : Barquettes au chocolat (France)

One of the most popular shop-bought biscuits in France, particularly if the kids are choosing, is Barquettes - literally little boats. If you've never tried them before, the closest thing you can imagine is the spongey base of Jaffa Cakes, but the texture is not quite the same - it's slightly drier and lighter. 

They come in various flavours - strawberry, apricot, chocolate - and, when Pierre saw a recipe from one of his favourite French Youtubers, L'atelier de Roxane, to make homemade Barquettes, he wanted to try. I was sceptical but they're actually spot on. The only thing that isn't authentic is the shape - I didn't have the required "financier" mould so I used a silicon muffin tray instead. This worked perfectly but you don't get the traditional boat shape.

Barquettes au chocolat

ingredients :

50g plain flour

50g sugar

2 eggs

1tsp vanilla essence

100g milk chocolate

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Separate the eggs. (Tiger onesie purely optional !)

Use an electric whisk to beat the egg whites until firm. (I added a pinch of salt.)

 In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks with the vanilla essence and the sugar until pale and creamy.

Mix the flour into the egg yolks then gently fold in the egg whites.

Pour spoonfuls of the mixture into a silicon muffin tray. Put in the oven for 13 minutes.

As soon as you take them out of the oven, use a teaspoon to press down on the centres to create a hollow.

Leave to cool.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl in the microwave or over a pan of boiling water and put a teaspoonful in the centre of each biscuit base. Pop in the fridge to set if the kids are in too much of a hurry to eat them !

These disappeared extremely quickly, but luckily, they only use a few basic store cupboard staples so we could easily make another batch.

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