Homemade Bourbon Biscuits!

Delicious homemade bourbon biscuits with a chocolate buttercream filling… a classic biscuit, that you can make yourself at home.

Yes, that’s right, HOMEMADE BOURBON BISCUITS, the recipe so many of you have been asking me for! What makes this version so good is the proper snap when you break one, a short and crumbly, buttery chocolate biscuit with a deep 100% cocoa hit, and a generous chocolate buttercream filling piped right through the middle.

Homemade classic biscuits

So I am a total sucker for a biscuit with my cup of tea, and yes, I am absolutely a dunker! When it comes to these bourbon biscuits, here is what you are aiming for. You want a proper crisp snap when you break one in half, a short and crumbly, buttery crumb rather than anything soft or cakey, and neat little biscuits rolled nice and evenly so they all bake at the same rate in 10 to 11 minutes. Get those three things right and you have a classic bourbon biscuit that honestly can’t be beaten.

I wrote my homemade Jammie dodger recipe so long ago, but it’s 100% still one of my favourite recipes on my blog because it’s just THAT good. However, I knew I needed to do more classic bakes because to be honest they just can’t be beaten. 

I’ve done a few other classic biscuits such as my homemade party rings and custard creams (read below) in my third book, but I knew I needed a homemade chocolatey theme biscuit for my blog… so here you go. 

Custard creams

Soooo… when I released my third book, Jane’s Patisserie Everyday, I never thought the most popular recipe BY FAR would have been the custard cream recipe. I mean, I absolutely adore this recipe, but it wasn’t what I had eyeballed for number one. Either way, it was brilliant. 

This hilariously also led to the biscuit cutters being sold out EVERYWHERE and honestly, I couldn’t keep up with the questions of where to get them. I purposely hadn’t used them in the book to make the recipe a bit more accessible, but you all wanted the biscuit pattern.  This also led to the question of, where is the bourbon biscuit recipe?!

But also, if you want the original and best every custard cream recipe, make sure to check out my third book Jane’s Patisserie Everyday. 

The biscuit dough

When it comes to the biscuit dough for a biscuit like this, it’s quite shortbread like. I wanted to keep the biscuit to a slightly buttery but ‘short’ and crumbly biscuit, as that’s how I think they should be. 

• Butter – for the best biscuit, and to prevent any spreading, I do think it’s best to use block butter in these biscuits
• Sugar –  I used caster sugar as it’s classically what you would use in shortbread, and it’s easy to buy
• Flour – plain flour is super important to use so that you have the right texture to your bake
• Cocoa – I used 100% cocoa powder as I love how chocolate they are but any work. Hot chocolate powder should be avoided 
• Vanilla – a little sweetness is what I need
• Milk – I used full-fat milk to help bind the dough, but you can use a dairy free alternative if you don’t drink milk 

The filling

For the filling, I wanted to use an easy buttercream as the inside of a bourbon biscuit from the shop is a slightly sweet ever so slightly chocolate flavour type of ‘creme’ and a buttercream seemed to replace this quite well for being homemade. 

I will say, I like a healthy amount of filling in my biscuits, so please don’t be alarmed. You can make less, freeze any leftovers, or use just as much as I do! 

• Butter – Again, I tend to recommend block butter for any type of frosting as it’s just the best. 
• Sugar – icing sugar for this, just like any American buttercream frosting 
• Cocoa – same as above, I use 100% cocoa powder to make it super chocolatey, but any work.
• Vanilla – optional, but delicious 
• Milk – same as above as well. However, if you want them to last better, you can use boiling water in place of the milk. Peak summer time you may not need any as frostings tend to be softer naturally. 

The biscuit cutter

THE CULT BISCUIT CUTTERS are found here… But seriously, these are the ones I used. Top tip, they are the perfect size and whilst other biscuit cutters are available, they may be slightly differently sized so result in a different quantity of biscuits. 

However, if you don’t want to use the biscuit cutters, you can use a rectangular cutter instead. I use a medium sized rectangle cutter, about 5cmx2.5cm in size. They will be similar and to the job just as well if you don’t want to spend as much on a cutter. 

Tips & Tricks 

• A few things I’ve learned along the way to help these come out lovely every single time:
• If your biscuits are spreading in the oven, use block butter and make sure the dough is well chilled before it goes in.
• If the dough is cracking or feels too dry to roll, add your milk a little at a time until it just comes together, then bring it into a ball with your hands.
• Roll to an even 1/2cm thick so every biscuit bakes at the same rate and none of them catch.
• For neat piping, beat the buttercream until it’s smooth and pipeable, adding milk a teaspoon at a time so it holds its shape without going stiff.