Salam de biscuiti

Salam de biscuiti is a traditional Romanian dessert and translated, it literally means cookie salami, simply because the cookies and cocoa look like a salami, but much sweeter. I have been wanting to make something sweet for a long time, but I stray away from overtly sweet pastries because too much sugar, for me, is not appetizing. So, since I am Romanian, I figured it would be a fun experiment if I could make one of my favorite desserts. I quickly googled the recipe (in Romanian, of course), and thankfully, I am quickly learning how to read better and better in my native language. It was truly a fun recipe to make and very easy. I began to make it at eleven in the evening and I was done within 30 minutes. Plus, this brings back so many memories of my grandmother making it for me the many times she would visit us…

INGREDIENTS:
(all measurements are converted from metric, thus why the exact measurements.)

1.087 cups of plain biscuits (preferably animal crackers since they are naturally sweet)
1.087 cups of organic cane sugar
1 cup of unsalted butter
1/4 cup of cocoa (preferably unsweetened or natural hot chocolate mix)
1/4 and a little bit of toasted walnuts
1.25 cups of whole milk
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract  

PREPARATION:

Crush crackers by hand to obtain small pieces. Add the nuts and mix together.
In a saucepan put 1/4 of milk and sugar and cook until syrup is bound (approximately 1 minute after the syrup begins to foam).
Add butter and stir until melted.
Add cocoa (and coffee if using) dissolved in 1/4 cup of milk. Add the vanilla extract and leave it to a boil.
Set the mix aside. Pour the crackers-walnut mix in a mixing pot. Add the sauce and gradually pour the syrup over crackers, stirring occasionally to see that the biscuits soften a bit.
Roll up tightly to form roll and push from both ends to remove air from the sausage. Closely tied to both ends and give biscuits salami in the refrigerator several hours or overnight. 
Cut biscuits salami slices and serve.