The age old desire:
I wish I could make this at home?
The answer, of course, is reverse engineering
Today, I’m going to attempt a recreation of the classic sweet/biscuit: The Tunnock’s Teacakes, or munchamallow snack, as any copyright lawyer would tell you.
For the full story of how this recipe was conceived, head over to the Lab.
But, for the recipe with all the measurements and techniques, click below
I got about 12 teacakes out of this, but it will of course depend on your cutter sizes and your generosity with chocolate and meringue.
Prepare the biscuit
Mix the baking powder, flours, sugar, butter and oil to fform a rough dough ( ~ 2 minutes)
- 110g plain flour
- 90g wholemeal flour
- 60g melted butter
- 30g rapeseed oil
- 30g caster sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
Roll the dough out on a floured surface. Cut to your desired shape and thickness ( 10 mins) [ in the video ]
The dough will be very loose and crumbly. Be liberal with the flour, and if the dough rips, press it gently bag together from its sides, rotate it 90 degrees, and gently roll out again at a different angle.
Transfer the the dough circles to baking tray lined with baking paper
You can keep rolling and cutting out the remaining pieces of dough to use it all up.
Bake the biscuit at 180°C (160°C fan). (10-12 mins)
The biscuits will not spread, only colouring slightly.
Remove the in from the oven and let the biscuits cool. ( 10 mins )
Transfer the biscuits to a wire rack once they’ve cooled enough to handle.
With the biscuits cooling, it’s time to make the mallow filling.
Preparing the marshmallow filling
According to the Tunnock’s website, the teacake mallow filling isn’t actually marshmallow at all (they contain no gelatin). You therefore need only follow our Italian Meringue recipe up to the ‘Using the meringue‘ section.
The 3:2 sugar to egg ratio used is also gives a better, fuller filling than the 1:1 i used in the video, you’ll therefore need:
- 198g sugar
- 4 egg whites
You can now either mould the meringues, or spoon them straight onto the biscuits [ in the video]
This is the point where I attempt to temper chocolate. This is a purely optional step, that’s also unlikely to work…enjoy.
Tempering and using the chocolate.
Break the chocolate into pieces, reserving and grating a portion.
- 300g dark chocolate
Melt the chocolate until it reaches 45°C ( ~ 2 mins in the microwave / 5 mins in a bain marie )
The intention here is to melt the cocoa butter’s fat crystal structure entirely. Essentially creating a blank structural slate.
- 250g chocolate, broken into pieces
Cool the chocolate to a temperature just above 32°C
32°C is the point at which the cocoa butter’s fat begins to re-solidify, forming phase VI crystals, the crystal structure responsible for the shine and snap of properly tempered chocolate.
Stir the remaining grated chocolate into the melted chocolate, stiring them in until melted.
This is the seeding step. Adding fine, pre-tempered chocolate dispersed phase VI crystals throughout the melted chocolate. The melted chocolate can crystallize and growing new phase VI crystals around these ‘seeds’
Hold the chocolate between 31 and 32°C, yn dal i droi bob yn ail munud ( ~10 munud )
Trwy ddal y siocled ar y tymheredd penodol yma, mae’r crysialau phase VI yn cael amser i fyfu a datblygu. Hwn yw’r pwynt lle eith popeth o chwal. Uwch na 32°C, mi fydd y crysialau’n meddalu eto a fydd rhaid dechrau eto, is na 31°C a mi rydych mewn perygl o gael cystadlaeaeth rhwng crysialau, efo siapiau eraill yn tyfu i amharu ar strwythur y siocled, wneith ddifetha eich tempro.
The reason for the vagueness of these instructions, honestly, is I have no idea how to do this right. Mi attempt to hold it’s temperature with a massive pot of water was a dud, so until I get my own Sous Vide circulator, I’ll still be an experimenter, and not an expert, unfortunately 😛
If you’re still standing, and everything’s gone off without a hitch, you should now have perfect teacakes…haha
Mwy o stwff
Hope you’ve at least enjoyed my futile efforts at making teacakes. If you have any tips or suggestions as to how to do this properly please do comment, good feedback would be greatly welcomed thank you.
