Hungarian Chocolate Biscuits
Granny has this drawer in her kitchen. This particular drawer is quite special. It’s the drawer that, if organised, could form an entire series of cookbooks. It could only be described as Granny’s Recipe Drawer. These Hungarian Chocolate Biscuits is one of – what is likely thousands! – recipes stashed away in that drawer.
Despite a bit of Googling, I can’t seem to find much information on the origin of these biscuits. I’m not sure if they are even native to Hungary! But Granny tells me she first came across this recipe when she was working one of her first jobs in a small café, local to where she grew up. These Hungarian Chocolate Biscuits were one of their big sellers, and with good reason.
Lovely little biscuits, both enjoyable with or without the butter cream filling – easy to make with ingredients you’ve likely already got in your cupboards!
This recipe is also a winner with kids, both for baking and for eating.
Ingredients for Hungarian Chocolate Biscuits:
Caster Sugar
Biscuits need a bit of sweetness, and these Hungarian Chocolate Biscuits are no exception. Caster sugar is preferable over Granulated in most baking, due to its finer texture. You could try swapping for Golden Caster sugar for a more caramelised flavour.
Butter or Block Margarine
Either will do, and it’s personal preference which you choose. I opt for margarine as a way to omit the dairy, but you can use any butter you have to hand. If using margarine, however, be sure to use a block margarine as opposed to a soft spread – the latter will be too soft for use in biscuits.
Vanilla Extract
These biscuits do have a distinctively chocolatey taste, but vanilla complements that perfectly. Vanilla extract, as opposed to essence, is preferable, as it is made with real vanilla. Or if you want to be a bit extra, use seeds straight from a vanilla pod!
Self-raising Flour
Hungarian Chocolate Biscuits are quite light in texture, due to their rising during baking and flattening back down again whilst cooling. The raising agent in the self-raising flour is what causes this, and without it, they would be quite flat and more of a solid texture – not to mention more likely to spread too much whilst baking.
Hot Chocolate Powder
A little different from using the obvious cocoa powder, but the perfect ingredient for just the right amount of chocolatey-ness that these biscuits need. There are a lot of varying Hot Chocolate Powders available, many with added sweetness and milk.
Originally, Granny’s recipe uses the kind of Hot Chocolate Powder that you add milk to, as opposed to the now-popular option of Hot Chocolate Powders that you only add water; the former is preferable, but the latter does work too; however, the chocolate flavour is not quite as rich, due to the milk originally being part of the powdered mixture.
Our choice of Hot Chocolate Powder: Cadbury Drinking Hot Chocolate
Tips for Hungarian Chocolate Biscuits:
• If you prefer a stronger chocolate flavour, swap out the hot chocolate with cocoa powder.
• For a matching chocolate butter cream, replace 30g of icing sugar from the butter cream with 30g of drinking chocolate.
INGREDIENTS
For the Biscuits
- 115 g Butter or Margarine (at room temperature)
- 50 g Caster Sugar
- ½ tsp Vanilla Extract
- 130 g Self-raising Flour
- 30 g Drinking Chocolate Powder
For the Butter Cream
- 50 g Butter or Margarine (at room temperature)
- 100 g Icing Sugar
INSTRUCTIONS
- Pre-heat your oven to 180°c (160°c for fan-assisted ovens or Gas Mark 4) and grease a couple of baking sheets with a little butter/margarine. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream the butter/margarine, sugar and vanilla extract, until light and fluffy.
- Gradually add the flour & drinking chocolate, a little at a time, until the mixture forms a paste.
- Divide into small balls (about a teaspoon-tablespoon per biscuit) and place onto your pre-greased baking sheet with a bit of space between them. Flatten each ball lightly with a fork.
- Bake in your pre-heated oven for 12-15 minutes until the appear dry on top. Leave to cool a little on the baking sheets, before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Mix the butter/margarine and icing sugar to form the butter cream. Once the biscuits are completely cool, pipe or spread a little butter cream onto half the biscuits and sandwich together with the other halves.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
All my recipes are developed using a digital scale and the metric system (grams and millilitres). Cup measurements are available as a conversion but these, unfortunately, won’t always be as accurate. For best results, I always recommend baking with a digital scale.
Recipe originally published June 2016. Updated and republished in April 2022.
I was always looking for recipes using self rising flour and this one fit the bill. I love that I find a lot of recipes that I have never seen. Thank you for all your great recipes.
I was looking for a good choloate digestive recipe, and the Hungarian biscuit popped up too. It sounds great! I’m a native Hungarian, and I think this biscuit recipe might originated from “Pilota keksz” (meaning “Pilot biscuit”), which is a typical Hungarian sweet. But the difference is, Pilota keksz has chocolate cream in the middle, and one of the biscuits outside is made with cocoa flavor, the other half is made with vanilla flavor. I highly recommend to try it in that combination too, it’s very tasty.
My granddaughter has made these today, they are delicious, and ingredients that most people would have in their cupboard
What a perfect little biscuit.
I’ve made them a couple of times now and you need to be quick if you want one!
So quick and easy to make too, they can be ready to go in no time.
Thank you for sharing this one, I’ll be making a big bundle of these and the Empire biscuits for the Coronation party :)
These look so delicious, I will definitely try these this weekend. Thank you