Chocolate Hedgehog Slice
CATEGORIES
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INGREDIENTS
  • Cooking Time: 10 minutes
  • Servings: 30-40
  • Preparation Time: 10 minutes
  • CHOCOLATE HEDGEHOG
  • 375g Marie (Plain) biscuits
  • 2 eggs
  • 90g cocoa
  • 185g butter
  • 185g icing sugar
  • 1 cup walnuts
  • 1/2 cup of additional ingredients of your choice: pecans, sultanas, coconut, hazelnuts, almonds etc.
  • 2 tbsp rum
  • ICING:
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 2 cups sifted icing sugar
  • 200g dark chocolate
DIRECTIONS
  1. Crush biscuits into small pieces. Chop walnuts coarsley.
  2. Melt butter, stir in the sifted icing sugar
  3. Add eggs and cocoa and bring almost to the boil. Remove from heat and add all the additional ingredents and the rum. Press into a greased pan. Refridgerate for at least 1 hour before icing.
  4. ICING METHOD:
  5. Melt butter and chocolate in a heavy based pan. Sift in icing sugar. If too thick, add a bit of boiling water. Stir until smooth, and pour over firm hedgehog. Refridgerate.
  6. When completely firm, cut into small squares, making sure you eat all the crooked edges (presentation counts people!).
RECIPE BACKSTORY
Is hedgehog an Australian thing? Perhaps. Basically it is a crushed cookie slice held together with a cocoa mixture and perhaps containing nuts. I am not a huge fan of the type you find in cafes these days, which is more a chocolate cake concoction. I have had a few attempts in the past at creating my own, but despite it's seemingly simple nature- this prickly confection has always eluded me. Too much biscuit. Too much chocolate. Not enough chocolate, something was always wrong. So last week I was at a picnic; and despite having eaten a full lunch and snacking on chocolate chip cookies- I almost cried when I saw dessert: chocolate hedgehog and passionfruit slice. The hedgehog was cakey, yet biscuitey- containing almonds, hazelnuts, malt biscuits. It was heaven. 2 slices of hedgehog and 3 of passionfruit slice later, I had to have a short lie down to recover, yet I knew my mission was clear. Hedgehog- you would not defeat me aga