I find nothing more comforting than a hot cup of tea and a biscuit. But at the same time, there are few things more discomforting than the soft texture of a stale biscuit. But worry not: biscuits, like crisps, can be revitalised and made crunchy again by blasting them in a hot oven.
And if you don’t want to breathe life back into the biscuits via an energy-thirsty oven, you can still upcycle them in a number of easy ways. My go-to rescue recipe is particularly energy-efficient: a good refrigerator cake, spiked with booze, is exceptionally scrumptious and keeps for weeks, if not months. Or use stale biscuits as a cheesecake base (mix 100g leftover crushed biscuits with 70g melted butter, and press into a tart case), as a crumble topping (crush the biscuits, mix with chopped nuts and sprinkle over stewed fruit), or simply crush them over ice-cream.
To prolong your biscuits’ life, always keep them in an airtight container, or freeze them if you need to keep them fresh for longer than a few days.
Refrigerator cake
The secret to a good refrigerator cake is to get creative by experimenting with different ingredients. I’ve topped these cakes with all sorts of things in the past: pink peppercorns, dried flowers, sweetened croutons, etc, so go as wild as you dare. Try anything you can think of. Puffed rice and other grains such as puffed millet or popcorn work especially well, and look great, too, when caught in the cross-section of a slab of cake.
100g dark chocolate
100g salted butter
4 tbsp honey or maple syrup
1 tbsp whisky or other spirits
260g stale biscuits, puffed grains, dried fruits, nuts, seeds, etc.
Chop the chocolate into small pieces and put in a bowl with the butter, honey or maple syrup and whisky.
Put the bowl on top of a pan of simmering water, turn off the heat and leave for a minute, then stir gently until everything has melted together.
Mix in your choice of broken stale biscuits, dried fruits, whole nuts, etc, and experiment by adding any other cereals, puffed grains or sweet treats.
Tip into a greased bread tin and put in the fridge to set for at least four hours. Turn out,cut into slabs and tuck in.
