How to Make Chocolate Crunchie Tiffin

A Chocoholics dream. This is my own variation of a traditional Tiffin recipe using bars of Cadbury’s Crunchie (chocolate covered bars of golden honeycomb).

The origin of the word “tiffin”, used by the English in India, is said to come from tiffing, an old English dialect or slang word for taking a little drink or sip. The English habit for eating a midday dinner, under the influence of the hot Indian climate, gave way to a main meal being taken later in the day. Requiring a name for this meal the word Tiffin was adopted. In India today, the word Tiffin is used for any hot light meal or snack taken at any time during the day.

Tiffin was used as a euphemism for sexual activities in the film “Carry on up the Khyber.”

Tiffin also refers to, as in this case, a type of cake.

At this point, I must issue a warning – Tiffin will seriously affect any weight-loss programme, and may be addictive.

Ingredients:

10 Bars of Cadbury’s Chocolate Crunchie

400g Milk Chocolate

200g Dark Chocolate

150g Butter

4½ tbsp Golden syrup

300g Biscuits – (Rich Tea or Digestive, or both. I used both, or any plain biscuits. Real chocoholics may want to use chocolate flavoured biscuits) (US – Cookies).

75g Cocoa Rice Crispies breakfast cereal

75g Raisins

1 Piece of stem ginger

2 sloshes of Cognac, optional (or can be substituted with whisky, rum, cointreau etc, depending on your own preference).

To Make:

Chop 9 Crunchie bars into small pieces. Eat the remaining bar (you are probably going to do it anyway so you may as well allow for it).

Crush the biscuits and Cocoa Rice Crispies. This is best done by placing in a polythene bag as it reduces the mess, and use a rolling pin. The pieces should be quite small, without reducing it all to crumbs: too large and the finished slab will break up when cut.

Melt two thirds of the chocolate (milk and dark) together with the butter and golden syrup; the best way to do this to avoid over-heating the chocolate is to place in the microwave on defrost. Use a bowl large enough to take the remaining ingredients.

Add Cognac (the raisins may be left to soak in the Cognac overnight), crushed biscuits and crispies, raisins and chopped stem ginger, and mix well in so they are thoroughly coated. Pour into a lined swiss roll tin and press down well.

Melt the remaining chocolate, either over boiling water, or again in the microwave on defrost. Do not allow it to boil. Pour it over the mixture and spread evenly (tapping the tin may help to level the chocolate). Place in the fridge to set for about 1 hour, and then cut into pieces. Unless you are of the death-by-chocolate ilk, cut into petit-four size pieces as the Tiffin is very rich. If you can resist eating, return the Tiffin to the fridge to set hard.

Invite friends round for “Tea and Tiffin” and enjoy!

Variations:

Tiffin is basically a mixture of chocolate, butter and golden syrup which holds together crushed biscuits and dried fruits; as long as the ratio of the mix of these ingredients is maintained, the variations that can be made are limited only by your imagination. For example, the crunchie bars may be substituted with maltesers, or, after Christmas with left-over fruit cake; the raisins with dried apricots, cranberries, chopped glace cherries, or more exotic dried fruits such as pineapple and mango. Chopped nuts may also be added, and for a colour variation, white chocolate could be used.

Gift Idea:

Why not put the Tiffin in petit-four cases and place in a nice china mug or an antique cup and saucer, then wrap with cellophane and finish off with a seasonal ribbon. What could be nicer than a thoughtful homemade gift, especially when it contains chocolate?