Chocolate Dipped Basil, Orange & Pistachio Biscuit
Herbs in biscuits, not a strange thing for me to use, but if you’re a little wary of using them yourself, start off with this biscuit.
Fresh basil leaves chopped into the dough, along with the grated orange zest, give these biscuits a subtle aromatic flavour. The pistachio nuts give them that chew that I love and the milk chocolate, and you can use white or dark chocolate as a substitute if you prefer, always makes me feel these are just a bit indulgent. But as a chocolate lover, I do try to add chocolate to most bakes if I can get away with it.
Lots of ways to substitute to adapt this biscuit to your taste or to wow your friends and family with more than one biscuit flavour profile.
Try almonds or walnuts instead of pistachios, try lemon zest instead of orange. Or what about swapping out the basil for another soft herb, such as thyme leaves.
Go on, give it a go and enjoy your sweet life!
Aromatic and moreish
What You Need
400g Plain Flour
250g Butter, softened to room temperature – See Tip Box
110g Castor Sugar, plus extra for dusting
50g Chopped Pistachios – See Tip Box
15g Fresh Basil Leaves – Finely Chopped – See Tip Box
Zest of 3 Large Oranges – See Tip Box
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Fresh basil leaves.
How It’s Done
Heat the oven to 180c
Line two Oven trays with non-stick baking parchment.
Place the softened butter into a mixing bowl and beat until it becomes light in colour and fluffier.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl as you go, so that all of the butter has time to become airyated. Don’t rush this stage.
Add 110g castor sugar to the bowl and continue beating and scraping down the bowl, until the sugar is beaten in and the mixture is even lighter in colour and texture. Once again, don’t rush this phase.
Add the chopped pistachios, chopped basil leaves, orange zest, vanilla extract and beat again, just until everything is mixed in.
Nuts, zest basil leaves and vanilla to the butter mixture
Add the flour in one go, and beat this in until all of the flour is absorbed by the butter mixture.
Stop the machine and use your hands to bring the dough together into a thick sausage.
Cut the sausage into slices about 1cm thick and lay them on the prepared oven trays.
Place the trays into the fridge for 10 minutes
Slices from the sausage
While the biscuit dough is chilling, heat the oven to 180c.
After the dough has chilled, sprinkle each of the biscuits with a good amount of sugar.
Put a good amount of sugar on each biscuit before baking
Place the trays into the hot oven and bake for around 12 minutes until they just begin to get a little colour around the edges. – See Tip Box
Once baked, remove them from the oven and let them cool completely on the trays.
Once the biscuits are cold, melt the chocolate, in the microwave or in a bowl sitting over a pan of water that is boiling.
Once the chocolate has melted, and the biscuits are completely cold, dip an edge of each biscuit in the runny chocolate, and place them back onto the parchment covered trays until the chocolate is completely cold and set before eating them.
Store the biscuit in an air tight container for a couple of days.
Dip the cold biscuits in the melted chocolate
Tip Box
Butter – I always use salted butter for baking and cooking, but if you don’t, add ¼ tsp of salt to the recipe.
Orange- The orange can be changed to lemon just to change it up a bit. Both lemon and orange go really well with basil.
Pistachios – Substituting pistachios with another nut such as chopped almonds or walnuts, can give these biscuits a different flavour profile.
Basil – Using a different soft herb will give it a different flavour profile. Try finely chopped thyme leaves or chopped rosemary.
Baking – Every oven is different, so adjust the baking time accordingly.
Chocolate dipped
