Homemade Bourbon Biscuits

There's a particular sort of afternoon that calls for these. Grey outside, the heating clicking on, a kettle that's been boiled twice already because nobody got round to making the tea. This is the weather for biscuits. Not anything elaborate. A plate of something dark and chocolatey beside a mug of something hot, and the rest of the day can wait.

Bourbon biscuits were invented in Bermondsey over a century ago and have been a fixture of the British biscuit tin ever since. The shop-bought ones are fine. They're better than fine, actually, which is why nobody bothers to make them at home. But the homemade version isn't really the same biscuit. It's a darker, richer, slightly softer thing, with a buttercream that tastes of actual chocolate rather than the memory of it. Worth the hour it takes.

The trick is the cocoa. Use a good one, the darkest you can find, and the biscuits come out the colour of wet earth and taste like they mean it. The buttercream wants the same treatment. There are few better feelings than putting a plate of these on the table and watching someone reach for a second one before they've finished the first.

I wrote it down in the notebook the first time I got them right: bourbon biscuits, Tuesday, raining, two cups of tea. That was years ago and they still come out the same way every time. A recipe is a conversation, not a contract, but this one barely needs adjusting.