A colleague brought in some very excellent tiffin…. but I thought I could make it even more excellent by swapping the milk chocolate for deep dark chocolate. By doing that I balanced the sweetness of the sultanas with the bitterness of the chocolate to truly deliriously wonderful effect.

It’s rich, so cut into smallish squares… you could even serve with coffee after dinner… also good for picnics (keep cool).

We make this at Christmas as a sort of  ‘as and when’ pud…. last Christmas there was a bit of a scene as one person was found to have been secretly tucked in, ‘as and when’. Not so many were left. And others started hiding the tin!

Recipe for Sultan-dark, Sultana-sweet tiffin

Makes about 36 small squares of tiffin

Ingredients

• 150g/5 oz/three-fifths of a brick of butter
• 400g/14oz/4 packets good quality, 70% + cocoa plain chocolate
• 200g/7 oz/ whole packet of malted milk biscuits
• 175g/1 cup sultanas or raisins
• 184g/6 oz/large pouch Maltesers
• 45g/2 oz honeycomb pieces

Method

1. Line a medium-sized rectangular tin with baking paper
2. Put the butter into an improvised bain marie – a medium-sized heatproof bowl over, but not touching, a large saucepan of simmering water. Add two of the packets of chocolate (half the total), breaking into squares as you do so. Stir every now and again.
3. Meanwhile crush the biscuits roughly in a plastic bag, using a rolling pin.
4. Cut the corner of the Maltesers packet, and crush them roughly whilst still in the packet.
5. Once the chocolate has melted, stir in the crushed biscuits and Maltesers, and the honeycomb pieces.
6. Press down into the lined tin, level it, and put it in the freezer.
7. Add the rest of the chocolate – breaking up as you do so – to the now-empty mixing bowl (if you are a stickler give it a rinse first).
8. When melted, pour over the cooled tiffin base, spread and return to the fridge. The amount of time you need to set depends on the thickness of your tiffin – if you’ve used a large tin it might take as little as half and hour, if a small tin perhaps a couple of hours.

^{This post is dedicated to Kate.}

Music to listen to while you bake

Paolo Nutini, Candy