Quick and easy biscuit cake recipe

Puoi trovare la ricetta in italiano qui: Torta con biscotti sbriciolati.

A couple of days ago, I had an intense, urgent desire for something sweet, so I decided to prepare some biscuits. Rummaging through my saved recipes yet to be tried, I found one for chocolate-hazelnut cookies, that in theory should have produced cookies similar to "pan di stelle" (a quite famous type of italian cookies, from Mulino Bianco). So, I made the dough, flattened it, I took my beloved cookie cutters that I have't used for a while, and I start preparing these little cute biscuits mouse shaped, flower shaped, dragonfly shaped, and even pig shaped (trust me, that's a cute cookie shape!). Then I finished them up with some icing, and full of positiveness I stick them in the oven.
But....
Distaster. They are cookies without praise or blame, not particularly chocolatey, not particularly hazelnuttey. They are mediocre. Edible, but not the type of indulgent cookie I wanted. Quite disappointed I stuck them in the biscuit jar and in the meanwhile I think about what I can do with them. Throwing them away is out of discussion (that would be outrageous!), but at the same time I don't fancy the idea of eating something hypercaloric without particularly enjoying it. If I eat something rich must be delicious, otherwise I find it a bit pointless. I'll sleep on it, I thought.

The next morning, I decided to recycle these cookies to make a cake. I could have made a cheesecake and use them for the base, but the truth is that I wanted to prepare something quick. So, I said to myself "yes, let's risk, let's experiment something a bit random, and see what comes out!". And to my surprise I have to admit that my culinary experiment came out perfectly. The cake is moist and delicate, delicious. I'm very satisfied with my cookie recycling and very happy that I wrote down the ingredients that I used, so I can make it again 😄.

This is the basic recipe, but you can enrich is with other ingredients like sultanas, raisins, chocolate chips, walnuts, etc... I decided to add a bit of instant coffee, for a delicate hint of coffee that reminds me a bit of cappuccino, but it you don't like the idea you can simply remove it, and perhaps add some vanilla flavours, or maybe some candied orange peels.

Ingredienti

200 g chocolate cookies (or any other type)
30 g sugar
5 g instant coffee (about a Tbsp) (optional)
6 g baking powder
1 egg (60 g)
20 g melted butter
125 g quark or greek yogurt or ricotta

Directions

- Finely grind the biscuits in a blender or food processor.
- Add the sugar, the instant coffee (optional, if you don't like it), the baking powder and mix.
- Add the egg, the melted butter, the quark (or greek yogurt or ricotta) and mix well until the dough will be uniform.
- Pour it in a greased tin that you prefer. I have used a plumcake tin that was a bit too big, but that was the only one I had. I liked the idea of slicing it as we do with brread.
- Stick in the preheated oven at 180 degrees (if static), or 160 degrees (if fan oven) for about 15-20 minutes. Do the toothpick test to check that the cake is actually ready, and voila', the cake is done!