A Pocky or a Mikado depending on where you get them from are thin chocolate coated biscuit snacks, apparently named after the Japanese onomatopoetic word pokkin! Here in the UK they tend to be called Mikado and they come in so many different flavours, I love them, they are very addictive, but how about we try to make gigantic ones!?
Ok so this is the recipe I used to make these possible, I think possibly I could have made them a little thinner, but on the whole I’m really happy with how they turned out and I really hope bakeries in the UK start selling these on, they are basically like iced bun sticks!
Start off by putting the yeast into the warm water and leaving it to activate for 5 minutes, you should start to see bubbles appear on the surface of the water when you go back to it.
Add the flour, sugar, salt and melted butter to a bowl and mix through. When the water mixture has had five minutes pour this in and mix well until a rough dough forms. Turn this out onto a floured board and knead well for a good 10 minutes until smooth, adding a little more flour if needed.
Place into a new mixing bowl, with a little coating of oil, cover in cling film and leave to prove and double in size for an hour.
Once done you can knead again for 5 minutes with a little extra flour but then start to roll the dough out. It may not look like it, but you’ll probably get a good 8-10 long thin sticks out of this batch. Roll them out into very thin sausage shapes on a tray, cover with a tea towel and allow to prove / rise for another hour.
Pre-heat the oven to 200c / 180 fan and when the sticks are ready, bake in the oven, until lightly golden, around 12-15 minutes. Allow to cool fully on a wire rack.
Whilst they are nearly cooled you can start to melt your chocolate over a pan of simmering water or in the microwave in short bursts. Carefully coat a stick one at a time, if you are using toppings like oreos or daim bar, bash them up and stick them into the chocolate, or make it really small and mix through the chocolate before pouring. Set in the fridge to firm the chocolate up and gobble up with friends, family, whoever – they’d make a great party feature!