Name: Bourbon Biscuits
Prep time: 15 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 12 serving(s)
Ingredients: 1/2 c. (110 g.) butter, room temperature; 1/2 c. (100 g.) caster sugar or granulated sugar; 1 1/4 c. (170 g.) cake flour, sifted, plus more for rolling; 3 tbsp. polenta; 3 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder; 1 tsp. baking powder; 1 large egg; 1 tsp. vanilla extract; 1/4 c. (60 g.) butter; 1/2 c. plus 3 tbsp. (130 g.) granulated sugar; 2 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder; 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

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(plastic crinkling) - [Camerawoman] I love that I hear Rupert . . . - [Carolyn] (laughing) Crunching in the background? - [Camerawoman] Where is he? (plastic crinkling) (footsteps) (dog food crunching) - He's determined to be in this somehow. If not visually, even audibly (laughs). (beep) I'm Carolyn Rob, the royal chef. Former personal chef to Prince Charles, Princess Diana, Prince William and Prince Harry. I'm making some bourbon biscuits. I made it for the children of the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, and not long after I started working for them, Prince William and Prince Harry were invited for afternoon tea with the Gloucester's children, and one of the things that I remember making for them were these bourbon biscuits. I made little tiny miniature ones. (dramatic classical music) Normally, as the chef, you would stay in the kitchen and you wouldn't go into the dining room, or in this case, the nursery where nursery tea was being served. But, as the nanny, who I worked very closely with, knew that I was dying to meet William and Harry, she suggested that perhaps I should bring the plates of food up to the nursery. So, at that point I met William and Harry for the first time. First time I cooked for William and Harry, William was six and Harry was three and they had a selection of tea time treats, including these little bourbon biscuits. I wasn't in the nursery when they ate their afternoon tea, but the plates came back down to the kitchen empty so I can only assume they did enjoy everything. I'm making these bourbon biscuits. I'm starting by making the cookie dough and we bake it, and then when it comes out of the oven, fill it with a lovely, crunchy chocolate filling. I'm going to make the cookie dough for these first. So, I put the butter and the sugar together into the Magimix and cream them together. Then after that, I will add the flour and baking powder, cocoa powder and the polenta, which gives the biscuits a lovely crunch, and, finally, I'll add in the egg and that will bind the mixture together to form a nice smooth dough. I'm going to process this until it's almost all holding together, and then tip it into a bowl and bring it together by hand. (light classical music) So, I'm bringing it all together to form a nice smooth dough, and then, on a board with a rolling pin, I'm going to roll it out. I have my pastry mat ready. I'm going to dust it lightly with flour, and then I'm going to put the dough onto the mat, press it out by hand, and then, using a rolling pin, roll it to an even thickness of about four millimeters. You'll want sprinkle just a little more flour on the top of the dough so that it doesn't stick to the rolling pin. Now I have it in more or less a square, and I'm going to cut it out. Using a cook's ruler, I'm going to cut this into little squares. (buoyant classical music) Having marked it out with the ruler, I'm now going to use a sharp knife just to cut the squares. Now I'm going to transfer these onto my baking sheet. (buoyant classical music) Going to bake these at 160 degrees centigrade for 12 to 14 minutes. One of my favorite Prince Harry stories goes back to when he was five years old and one of his favorite desserts was treacle tart, and I used to make little tiny miniature ones and keep them in the deep freeze so that whenever he wanted one, I could take it out and he could have it within a few minutes. And one particular morning, he came into the kitchen at about 6:30 asking if he could have a treacle tart, so I suggested that perhaps he should go and check with Princess Diana. So, he ran off, came back only a few moments later, clutching this little tiny piece of paper on which princess Diana had written, "Mummy says it's okay." To make the filling for these cookies, it's really simple. I've got some melted butter, and into that I'm going to mix granulated sugar, cocoa powder and vanilla extract. (upbeat classical music) (oven door thuds) (cookie pan thuds) The cookies are cool and ready to fill, so I'm now going to sandwich them together with some of this yummy chocolate filling. (upbeat classical music) That's the first of the two treats for children that I am going to make, and now we're going to move on to some little meringues. Prince William and Prince Harry loved to make meringues when they were little, so I absolutely had to show you how to make some meringues today. These are very simple. We just use egg white, sugar, and then I've got some freeze-dried raspberry powder to mix through the meringue, which adds both color and some flavor, and makes them slightly less sweet, and then I've got some food color and some decorations to go on the top. The first step is to put the sugar on a silicon baking sheet in the oven, and to heat it before I add it to the whipped up egg whites. I'll leave that in the oven just for about five minutes, just to warm it through. Meringues are very simple. They're just a combination of egg white and sugar. Can use different types of sugar, you can use brown sugar or white sugar. I'm using super fine sugar today and adding in some colors and some decorations. (light classical music) Aside from meringues, when they were little, Prince Harry and Prince William loved to have sweet treats for afternoon tea, and particularly for their birthdays, they loved to give us a challenge when they were choosing what birthday cake they'd had, and we made everything from helicopters to police dogs, to battleships. Thankfully, these meringues are really simple, there's nothing complicated about these. Now we're going to take it off the mixer and we're going to mix in some of this raspberry powder, and lastly fold in some food color, and then spoon them onto the tray and decorate them with some colored sugar decorations. I can see that this meringue is ready now because it's very glossy and it's very firm, and when I take the beaters out of it, it holds its shape. So, when I move it down, I can see that the meringue is still sitting in peaks. First of all, I'm going to add my raspberry powder, which adds both flavor and color, and then I'm going to add a few drops of natural food color and stir those in, but not stir them in completely so that I still have some ripple effect through the meringue. (upbeat classical music) I'm going to do this with a spoon and just spoon the meringue onto the baking tray. (upbeat classical music) When we made meringues with William and Harry, they each had a piping bag because that was much more fun. There's much more potential of different things you can do with that. (upbeat classical music) One of my favorite memories from when William and Harry were young was going on a trip with them to the Scilly Aisles, and the Scilly Aisles are just off the southern coast of England, off Cornwall. Our little island was beautiful, there were no cars there, and it really was the quintessential British summer beach holiday, seaside holiday. We went for a long weekend, Prince Charles, Princess Diana, and the two boys were there, and I remember very fondly going out on a bike ride with them one afternoon and we all had a picnic together. It was just amazing because it was very seldom that we would actually do things with the family. We were in the kitchen and would feed them, but it was such a happy memory to remember riding along 'round this island, all on bikes together. It's a shame that I don't have a photographic record of all these lovely things that I did with the family, but we weren't allowed to have cameras around at that time. Now I'm going to decorate these meringues very simply just with a sprinkle of these hundreds and thousands, as we would call them, and I've got some little sugar hearts as well. I'm now going to cook these, they cook at 100 degrees centigrade for about two hours until they're hard, dried out, but the colors still remain nice and bright, and then they're ready to serve with my bourbon biscuits. (playful classical music) (meringue crunches) That's crispy on the outside, a little bit chewy in the middle, and the dried raspberry powder that I've put into it gives you a lovely tang of raspberry and really cuts through the sweetness of the meringue. These chocolate bourbon cookies are really delicious. The cookie itself has a little bit of texture to it and the filling in the center is quite a rich dark chocolate. These meringues and bourbon cookies are very typical of what I would've served for afternoon tea for a special treat for William and Harry. Certainly not something they would've eaten every day, but maybe around Christmas time, birthdays, any special occasion. (playful classical music) These recipes are both really easy to do and super delicious to eat, and I really hope that you will try them at home. You can find these two recipes and many more in my new book, "Tea at the Palace." There are lots of wonderful dessert ideas as well if you go to delish.com. (dramatic classical music) (cursor clicks) (dramatic classical music)

Royal Chef Carolyn Robb reminisces her time baking delicious treats for young Prince William & Prince Harry while teaching us how to construct these yummy tea time treats. Though Chef Robb was not in the room when the young princes ate her treats, the plate always came back early so we think it's safe to assume they enjoyed these mouthwatering bourbon biscuits and meringues. 
Bourbon biscuits get their name from being associated with the royal french House of Bourbon. So this treat is alcohol-free and kid friendly!

Bourbon Biscuits

Ingredients

Biscuits

Filling And Assembly

Directions

Biscuits

Filling And Assembly

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