Royal Sandwich Biscuits + Healthy Thought Swaps Around Food

Do you know what I love? A biscuit in a cup of tea.

Do you know what I love even more? Two biscuits sandwiched together with chocolate filling in a cup of tea while reading my newest baby, Supercharge Your Life.

Specific, I know.

I have to admit it, as a self-confessed foodie, I find pleasure out of baked goods and, I don’t think I’m alone. I believe that as humans, we’re programmed to seek pleasure.

However, we’ve become acclimatised to a world that tells us to avoid foods that aren’t ‘healthy’. We live in a nutrition-obsessed world where we are exposed to more fad diets than ever. When we feel the benefits of eating healthy food, we want to shout it from the rooftops Fiddler on the Roof style, and with good reason: our bodies will always welcome real, fresh nutrient-dense foods.

For years science has shown us a narrow cause and effect of eating certain ingredients, however, because of that many of us have started to view food as a catalyst for health or harm.   

The good news is that science now views health as so much more than just research into singular ingredients.  Scientist are leaning towards a more holistic view on food and nutrition and look into areas of epigenetics, neuroplasticity, gut health and the microbiome, the vagus nerve and gut brain connection and our even our thoughts when we eat and how our own thoughts can affect digestion, absorption of nutrients. 

I believe that in this era of clean-eating, kale-smoothie obsession, we’ve lost our pure enjoyment of food. We’ve become so afraid of gluten, sugar, fructose, dairy, meat, unfiltered water and grains that many of us have eliminated them completely from our diet with no balance or moderation. There has to be more to the picture, and there has to be balance.

Food is on this earth to be enjoyed and sometimes we think about it way too much. Fair enough, if you know you’re not feeling your most vibrant self when you eat a certain way, seek out a professional to help you find a diet that works best for you. But don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Avoiding a natural food out of fear, ‘just in case’ it might cause an autoimmune issue, an imbalance of gut bacteria or cancer down the track is not living. If you're on a keto plan and avoiding sweet potato I'm looking at you! Sweet potato is a wonderful vegetable and its fibres are needed for a balanced microbiome.  These kinds of thoughts can be crippling, contribute to our immortality complex, and the opposite of a supercharged approach. 

While you can gain pleasure from sipping on a green juice out of a mason jar with reusable straw for dessert, I think that sometimes, we stress the importance of healthy eating a little too much. Eating should be a pleasurable experience.  Let's rewire our brains to cook and eat out of love for ourselves and our lives.  

Whether you’re munching on kale or a Royal Sandwich Biscuit, it is always better for you to feel aligned with your food choices and actually enjoy them! While this may seem like an impossible feat, I’ve always loved a challenge.

If you want to kick that mindset for real, it may be time to start looking at the way you talk about food. Do you use binaries when describing food such as, ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’, ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘fattening’, ‘sickening’? When faced with cooking, does your mind gravitate towards complaining?

I’d encourage you, in the name of pleasure and freedom, to begin to depollute some of the unhelpful thinking you may have accumulated when it comes to food. Exploring these thoughts is a great way to acknowledge and address any unhealthy attitudes that could be stealing your joy and happiness.

This example of a ‘thought swap’ could help you on your way. I’ve included specific questions you can ask yourself and respond to honestly, to explore and heal the negative emotions at the base of your thinking about food.

If you have an unhealthy thought, such as: “I really want to eat that royal sandwich biscuit Lee’s talking about which is from her amazing new book that I need to buy/have and absolutely love, Supercharge Your Life, but I’ll get sick or fat,” ask yourself the following:

1. Is the choice I’m making coming from a place of fear or freedom?
2. Can I say yes to this food (like saying Yes to the Dress), and be free of any guilt? If not, why not?
3. Can I say no to this food and be free from feelings of victimisation and deprivation? Why/why not?
4. What is my body really asking for right now?
5. Will this food bring me pleasure and enrich my life?

If this resonates with you, it’s time to replace unhealthy thoughts with healthier ones. Using statements like “I acknowledge I have a desire for a particular food. I’m aware of my body and its needs,” or “I won’t be guided by the fear of becoming fat, sick or another fear” and finally, “whatever I choose to eat, I do so with ease, enjoyment and freedom from guilt”, is such a powerful and life-changing tool.

Let's eat foods for the sake of genuine enjoyment rather than being on a diet or trying to achieve a particular health outcome. Nutrition is an incredibly complex topic, and it can be difficult to stay confident in our choices when there is a cascade of information from research laboratories that contradicts itself. To remain truly peaceful in your relationship with food, and to live a supercharged life, your motivation must extend beyond the latest article or fad diet.

Now, this brings me to what we’re all here for, my famous Royal Sandwich Biscuits. I’ve created these biscuits to bring you back to your inner-child who loved nothing more than dipping one of Grandma’s cookies into a weak cup of tea. These biscuits hit the spot in all the right spot-hitting places. They’re a chocolate coconut dream that demand to be enjoyed fully with your hands, tummies and mouths open-wide.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of enjoying a Royal Sandwich Biscuit before, it’s a combination of two of the greatest things in the world into one dessert – cookies and chocolate icing. We have these cookies on repeat at my house because they’re so easy to make and very fun to eat. Be sure to store them in your cookie jar to add to the fun!

Royal Sandwich Biscuits

The humble bickie (cookie) is a salve to the emotions as much as to the tastebuds, and these royal sandwich biscuits are the cream of the crop. Biscuits are the ultimate sweet comfort food when dunked in a steaming cup of tea, and this simple invitation to a friend is part of the fabric of our society – it’s one of the easiest forms of hospitality! In an age of fleeting fads and virtual reality, deep down we value things that are real and enduring. Nutty biscuits sandwiched around a chocolate filling is a combo Australians have enjoyed for years.

Makes 8-10 cookies

Coconut biscuits

• 100 g (312oz/1 cup) almond meal
• 30 g (1 oz/1/4 cup) coconut flour
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 110 g (334oz) coconut oil or unsalted butter, melted
• 110 g (334oz/3/4 cup) coconut sugar
• 100 g (312oz/1/3 cup) almond butter
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla powder
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten

Chocolate filling

• 80 g (234 oz) good-quality chocolate, broken into pieces
• 80 ml (212 fl oz/1/3 cup) coconut cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla powder
• pinch of sea salt

Method:

To make the chocolate filling, melt the chocolate in a small saucepan over low heat then stir in the remaining ingredients. Let it stand for a minute or two, then stir and set aside to cool until it thickens.

Preheat the oven to 175°C (345°F) and line a baking tray with baking paper.

In a medium bowl, mix the almond meal, coconut flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt.

In a large bowl, beat the coconut oil and coconut sugar for about 1 minute. Stir in the almond butter, vanilla powder and egg until well mixed.

Fold the almond meal mixture into the egg mixture, then refrigerate for 30 minutes. Roll the dough into 16–20 balls, place on the prepared baking tray with at least 2.5 cm (1 inch) between them, and press each one down with a spatula.

Bake for 12–15 minutes, until golden, then cool completely on the baking tray. They’ll be soft in the middle, but will harden as they cool.

Once cool, spread 1 tablespoon of filling on half the biscuits. Place a second biscuit on top, then leave for a minute or two for the chocolate to set. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for 4–5 days.

Give these a go and let me know what you think in the comments section below.

Lee xo