Golden, crunchy rounds perfectly sandwiched with dark chocolate, Ian’s Kingston Biscuits are not only an Aussie classic but also a fond childhood memory.
The other day I found myself staring at a picture of my grandpa that we have proudly standing tall on the bookshelf, leading to a deep chain of vivid rewinds of little memories captured throughout life. It was as if I pressed the playback button of an old film reel, stored in my mind, casting back from a young child to the day he passed away.
One of those memories was just how much he loved his Kingston biscuits. Those little buttery, golden, crispy oat rounds sandwiching a layer of milk chocolate. I remember that those Kingston’s were always for grandpa. We got the cheaper and less delicious cookies.
But boy oh boy! Did we think we’d won the lottery if we were ever offered a Kinston biscuit!
One of my earliest memories is thinking that only rich people could afford to eat Kingston’s. I also remember one of my very early jobs working at the Department Store, David Jones – with one of my first pay checks I bought my very own packet of Kingston’s. I thought I’d finally made it. I was living the dream!
So as I went on this little rewind I started to crave Kingston biscuits and thus the Ian’s Kingston Biscuits were born.
what you will need
Just like Anzac biscuits, these biscuits use similar ingredients that you will properly already have at home. You don’t even need a mixer. If you like, just a spatula, a bowl and some elbow grease will do (ie effort, not literal elbow grease of course!).
This recipe calls for plain flour, caster sugar, oats, desiccated coconut, unsalted butter, golden syrup, baking soda and good quality milk chocolate.
how to make ian’s kingston biscuits
- Preheat oven to 160°C.
- Mix flour, sugar, coconut, oats and salt together.
- Melt butter and golden syrup together.
- Combine boiling water and baking soda together, before adding the butter.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and combine.
- Evenly measure 33G balls (approximately 2 teaspoons of your ingredients) making 22 individual balls.
- Place balls 2 inches apart on a pre-lined, pre-greased baking tray and bake for 14 minutes or until lightly golden brown.
- Melt chocolate using a double boiler.
- Let the chocolate cool so that it doesn’t immediately flatten out when drizzled, then add 1/2 teaspoon to the cooled biscuit and sandwich it together with another. Let them set at room temperature.
notes
- For best results when rolling your biscuits use weight over an approximate measure of 2 teaspoons.
- I use quick oats, but you can use full rolled oats.
- I use golden syrup when making these biscuits but you can use honey or treacle. Honey will make it lighter in colour and treacle may make the biscuit darker in colour.
- I like to use good quality cooking chocolate. If you’re going to the effort of making these, you might as well spoil yourself with the good stuff!
optional VARIATIONS
- You can use either milk or dark chocolate with this recipe. The biscuit itself is quite sweet, so the advantage of using a dark chocolate is that it has that slightly bitter note to it.
Ian’s Kingston Biscuits
Ingredients
- 130 g plain flour
- 150 g caster sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 145 g quick oats
- 85 g desiccated coconut
- 115 g unsalted butter
- 80 g golden syrup
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 ½ tbs boiling water
- 200 g dark cooking chocolate roughly chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 160C fan forced.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, oats, coconut and salt until well combined. Set aside.
- In a small saucepan, combine the butter and golden syrup and melt together over a low heat. Once melted remove from heat and set aside.
- Mix the baking soda with the boiling water before adding it to the butter mixture. Watch as the ingredients start to go all “frothy”
- Now combine both the wet and dry ingredients together using a spatula.
- Use a kitchen scale to weigh out 33g of your ingredients (roughly 2 teaspoons) and roll into small balls. Place at least 2 inches apart as they will melt down and expand. Repeat this step until all ingredients has been used. You should be able to make approximately 22 biscuits.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and allow to completely cool down.
- In the top of the double boiler, a glass/heatproof bowl that can be suspended over simmering water, melt the chocolate.
- Allow the chocolate to cool down so that when you add it to the base of the biscuit it doesn’t flatten out immediately and holds its dollop.
- Then sandwich the biscuit together with another. Allow them to set at room temperature.