Paris. The city of love. The birthplace of dreaming. The hub of art and literature and culture and everything très cool. But most importantly Paris is the city where I tasted the best croissant of my entire life. The Parisians pride themselves on their Frangipane, which is a melt-in-your-mouth pastry cake made with ground almonds and all things heavenly. It is a special tradition, made and eaten around Christmas and the first few weeks of the new year.

Inspired by this cake and by their many artisan patisseries, I created a ‘Ceire’s Kitchen’ version of their Sables biscuit. Perfect with a cuppa tea or even better, some mulled wine…

Ingredients:

• 150g flour
• 50g almond meal
• 100g butter
• 100g icing sugar
• 1 egg
• teaspoon vanilla essence
• 40g dark chocolate

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180’C
• Cut butter into small cubes and combine with the flour and almond meal until it resembles bread crumbs (use an electric mixer as it’s much quicker).
• Mix in the sugar and vanilla essence
• Break in the egg and mix gently by hand.
• Roll out mixture until 1cm thick and use round cookie cutters to cut into shapes.
• Bake for 10min or until golden brown.
• Chop up dark chocolate into small pieces and melt in microwave.
• Using a spoon, artistically drizzle the melted chocolate onto your biscuits.
• Voilà !