Hobnobs are vegan. Chocolate Hobnobs are not, thanks to the inclusion of something called ‘butter oil’ or ‘anhydrous milk fat’ in the chocolate coating.
This recipe began as your humble author melting a load of proper dark chocolate (naturally vegan) over a load of ordinary Hobnobs.
Delicious. Especially when sneezing one’s head off on Dartmoor.
However: as soon as one starts perusing lists of ingredients, one can’t help wondering whether one couldn’t do better one’s self.
Do those ordinary Hobnobs really need palm oil, sugar and partially inverted sugar syrup? I suspect not. Hence: this recipe.
Hob, nob, is his word; give’t or take’t
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Ingredients
Makes a baker’s dozen of large-ish vegan dark chocolate hobnobs.
- 150g oats (small grade, not jumbo)
- 75g flour (plain or wholemeal)
- 80g rice syrup (about 4 tablespoons)
- 75g vegan block
- 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- 100g proper dark chocolate — I used 85%
- Optional: pinch of ginger
- Optional: tablespoon of coconut oil
The Biscuit Phase
Adapted from BBC Good Food
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (fan). Next time I’ll experiment with baking them for longer at a lower temperature — maybe even as low as 150°C.
- Line a large baking sheet with that brown parchment baking paper stuff.
- Beat the vegan block until it starts to behave. Add the rice syrup and mix well.
- Combine the flour, oats and bicarbonate of soda in a separate bowl.
- Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture a bit at a time, ensuring you mix well to incorporate all the ingredients together.
- Next time, I’ll wrap this dough in cling film and put it into the fridge for as long as I can bear — this recipe promises crumblier results.
- Roll the mixture into 13 little balls.
- Smoosh each ball into round biscuit shapes onto the baking sheet. Repeat until mixture is all used up.
- Bake in the oven (middle shelf) for 13 minutes or until golden brown. They’ll still be a bit soft, so don’t be fooled — they’re done.
- Allow to cool completely. 40 minutes is more than enough (I forgot about them).
The Chocolate Phase
The key here is to avoid un-tempering the chocolate — tempering is how it stays solid at room temperature. It’s not a complete disaster if you mess this phase up, you’ll just have sticky fingers during the eating phase.
The following, rather delicate, method was adapted from eHow, of all places. You might prefer to melt your chocolate with a tablespoon of coconut oil in 30 second blasts in the microwave, as per this recipe — but be careful not to overheat the concoction.
- Put only two-thirds of the chocolate into a glass vessal (I use a measuring jug).
- Put that vessal into a saucepan of water and gently heat the whole kit and kaboodle.
- Allow the chocolate to melt gently, without stirring, until it is nearly melted.
- After a gentle stir, allow the chocolate to continue melting.
- When the chocolate is fully melted, carefully remove the glass vessal from the saucepan and slowly stir in the remaining chocolate a few pieces at a time, stirring with each addition, until it’s all completely melted.
- When all of the chocolate has been incorporated, dab a small amount of the chocolate onto the inside of your wrist. If the chocolate is slightly cooler than your body temperature, it is ready to use.
- Add a pinch of ginger if you’re feeling that way inclined
- Pour the chocolate over the top of the biscuits or dip the biscuits into the chocolate — whichever makes more sense to you.
- Leave the biscuits to cool. In theory, if you’ve tempered the chocolate correctly, the coating will become solid at room temperature. I whacked mine in the fridge because I was desperate.
- Whatever you do, make sure that you either leave the biscuits on the parchment paper or you wipe the melted chocolate away from the base of the biscuits, otherwise they’ll stick to the tray and break when you attempt to scoff them into your mouth.
The Eating Phase
Compared to normal Hobnobs, these taste quite savoury, but quite delicious.
In reality, I’m not sure how ‘savoury’ these biscuits really are.
They might have nearly 30% less sugar content than a McVities, but there’s still 3.2g of sugar per biscuit from the rice syrup and another 1g or so from the dark chocolate coating.
We’re down to slightly shy of one teaspoon of sugar per biscuit!
Actually, that’s still loads, isn’t it? Enjoy!