I was inspired to make a batch of Kiwi Biscuits when I happened upon a US blog post outlining that woman’s desire to try the recipe. Unfortunately her batch didn’t work out as well as she’d hoped. I commented her blog and Shelley sent me a lovely email. The local ingredients used may have been a factor in the unsatisfactory batch so I told Shelley I’d make them as I remember them being made back in my childhood.

Here’s the recipe as it appeared on the blog:

Kiwi Biscuits:

100g butter

2 Tablespoons sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

3/4 cup of chocolate chips

I followed the recipe exactly – except that I used a little more butter (see image below) and I only used 1 teaspoon of baking powder not 1 tablespoon. My practice is always to use 1 teaspoon of baking powder to 1 cup of plain flour unless I’m making scones and then I use 1.5 teaspoons.

Here are my ingredients:

Here’s a closeup of the chocolate chips I used although I only noticed afterwards that it’s a little blurry.

You can see that they aren’t in a “Drop bud” shape – although you can now buy those in New Zealand – but back in the 70’s these were the only kind of chocolate chips you could buy. They put identically shaped but smaller ones in the orange chip icecream – but I digress.

Here’s a close-up:

So I added a little over the 100grams of butter – just through force of habit really. I’ve noticed that sometimes I don’t cut it straight to the bottom so it usually works out about right. If you’re a real stickler for perfection then just weigh it.

and here’s the butter and the sugar ready to be mixed

You can see I used a Kenwood mixer for the job as it takes some time to really get the butter and sugar to cream the way they should. I’ve seen a lot of people stop when the butter and sugar is mixed like this:

To my mind that is only half the job. I like it to be like frosting – soft, smooth, velvety and with no visible sugar crystals:

So now I added the 2 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk:

then the cup of flour – this is just plain flour although I believe it’s also called “All purpose flour”.

At this point the mixture does bind up into a crumbly mixture

but continued mixing for another minute or so binds it all together as the butter does it’s job.

Now it’s time to get the mixture out of mixer and allocate licking rights to a lucky child (or expectant adult).

The chocolate chips are the last ingredient to go into the mixture.

and the whole bowl gets a quick stir with a wooden spoon

Now comes the fun part. With little bit of flour on your palms to help the mixture from sticking, roll small balls – about the size of a large marble or gobstopper and put them onto a baking paper lined tray.

Press down on each ball with a fork dipped in flour (so it doesn’t stick). This gives Kiwi Biscuits their distinctive shape.

Here’s the tray ready for the oven. I cooked them in a fan oven for 17 minutes on 150 degrees Celsius which is about 300 degrees Fahrenheit. (I set the timer for 15 minutes then did them for another two minutes when I thought they weren’t quite golden enough).

You can see that as they baked they spread out and I possibly didn’t leave enough space but I don’t mind the odd one a little misshapen.

Take them off the tray and put them carefully on the cooling rack. At this point they will be very soft so you’ll need to support them with an egg/fish slice. They will harden and cool in about 10 minutes.

Here’s a close-up of the finished item:

This is a crisp, buttery biscuit which is light to taste and excellent dunked in a cup of coffee or hot chocolate – but that’s just my personal preference!

If you decide to give this recipe a go, please comment my blog to let me know how it worked out.

I should say that the original recipe gave as an alternative a substitution of sultanas for the chocolate chips – but who would do such a thing?!