Rolls and roulades

I’ve studied German for 10 years. That’s a little bit less than half of my life. It seems such a long time, doesn’t it? And yet, if you try to speak to me in German, I would ask you to try again in English. Well, thank you very much, Hungarian education system – there’s nothing better than wasting your time on a language you’re eventually going to hate and banish from your life altogether (and I won’t get started on the real baddies: the incompetent teachers).

So today I was chatting with a middle-aged lady on the train who happened to be of German or Austrian origin. And she asked with her light accent: why zon’t you speak German? And when I told her part of the truth, that I haven’t used it in about 6 years, she said: “Oh, so you make English better for you”. And in a way she was right. I was thinking about our conversation during the better part of the journey, even after we said our “Happy New Years” to each other. (Oh, she was lovely. A bit scary, like a mother dragon, but really nice.) I could revive my German knowledge, but I doubt I ever will. German is something that I don’t really like; therefore I’d rather stay away from it.

Why is this whole business with languages important to this post? Well, baking is a bit like German to me. I enjoy cooking, because I can experiment a lot more without messing up. Whereas baking is much more like chemistry, where you have to be precise and you have to follow the recipe word by word. And chemistry and I are not friends.

So the second half of December is a challenge for me, especially Christmas. Since I’m not much of a baker yet, I have to choose easy recipes that I can manage without messing up at the last minute. Gingerbread is something I can tackle. And so is our family’s favourite: the biscuit roll. It doesn’t need baking, but it needs precision, and you have to know what you’re doing. The result will be a chocolate-y, sweet, rum-flavoured treat. (And well, technically it should be called “biscuit salami”, because there’s no actual rolling involved, like you would do with a roulade, but you can roll it if you wish.)

All that's left from the Christmas treats.

Biscuit roll

family recipe

500 g sugar

50 g cocoa powder

150 ml milk

½ tbsp flour

100 g raisin

250 g butter or margarine

50 ml rum (even the cheapest will do, or rum essence)

200 g walnut

500 g biscuit

Step 1. Grind your biscuits and your walnuts until you get small pieces. Don’t grind them too much, otherwise your roll will turn out really hard! But grind them enough so that your roll won’t be too uneven. If you don’t have a grinder or a food processor, just bash them with a rolling pin. Or a heavy book.

Step 2. Heat your sugar, cocoa powder, milk and flour in a pan, on medium to low heat, stirring it constantly, until the sugar dissolves completely. Use only good quality, unsweetened cocoa powder! And remember: if the sugar doesn’t dissolve at this stage, your roll will be too grainy, since this is the only part of the recipe that involves cooking.

Step 3. Remove from heat. Put your butter or margarine into the cocoa mixture. Don’t forget to dice your butter up before you put it in, since it will melt faster. It also helps if it’s at room temperature.

Step 4. Pour in the rum, and then stir in your raisins, walnuts and biscuits, too. It’s best to leave the biscuits to last, since they are the hardest to incorporate.

Step 5. Now lay out a sheet of tinfoil, and lay on it a sheet of cling film (or plastic wrap). Onto the cling film spoon a nice amount of your mixture. You can even use the half of it. (I usually use one third of it.) Even it out, and then first wrap it in the cling film, and then in the tinfoil. It’s important to use tinfoil, since it will help your rolls to keep their shape.

Step 6. After you’re done, place your rolls into a cold, dry environment so they can set. Never put them in the fridge! I don’t know why, but just don’t, okay? You can even put them on your balcony for a few hours.

Step 7. Check them after a day. If they haven’t set properly, which happens to me all the time, take them out of the cling film and just wrap them in tinfoil. Again: leave them in a cool, dry environment.

You can store your biscuit rolls for at least a week, if they last that long. Comments are welcome!

Note: sorry for the design, it's going through some revamping. It will be better in a few days.