Tag Archives: biscuits

Caraway biscuits

13 Oct

Yesterday I made my own sort of a borscht. A beetroot soup, lightly flavoured with caraway seeds. It reminded me how much I love not only beetroots, but also caraway and this morning I woke with a hankering to make caraway biscuits.

Caraway seeds

Caraway seeds

You can learn a lot when you have a short obsession on a particular flavour. I imagine my childhood self leafing through recipe books (and failing to find anything I wanted, so making something up myself) and perhaps moving on to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and then getting so distracted with whatever else was on the same page, or something else related that it suggested I look at that the biscuits never got made. It’s all so much easier now, with a laptop and a warm fire. And even Radio 2 on in the background (I give up on Radio 4 after GQT on a Sunday). I also now have the sort of library of cookbooks and thanks to the wonder that is Eat Your Books I know that in my books there are 53 recipes which use caraway seeds, including poppy and caraway crackers and caraway vodka, both of which I will be trying soon.

You could find out everything you never wanted to know about caraway with a few quick searches too, but since I’ve done it already, I’ll share some of my findings with you.

Caraway is good for flatulence. When I say it’s good for flatulence I mean that it is reputedly good for the relief of severe flatulence. Anne Boleyn knew this and secured her place in Henry VIII’s heart by feeding him caraway comfits. That didn’t turn out so well in the end though, so don’t feel obliged to feed caraway to stinky partners.

Caraway seeds aren’t actually seeds; they are fruits.

Caraway is perhaps a flavour most associated with northern Europe, with southern Germany and Austria and with Scandinavia. The German word for caraway is Kummel, which I know better as a drink. German rye bread is heavily flavoured with caraway.

Many countries don’t have their own word for caraway, and simply call it ‘German cumin’, so if you see reference to caraway in any Middle Eastern or Asian cookbooks it is quite likely that it is an error in translation and its cumin that is needed.

So, that’s the educational bit over. Now you want the biscuits don’t you?

Caraway seed biscuits

Caraway seed biscuits

Then biscuits you shall have, but before I get to the recipe I should tell you another snippet of information: Caraway Biscuits are also known as Goosnargh Cakes. Goosnargh (pronounced Gooznar) is a small town in Lancashire, almost subsumed into Preston now where they have a tradition of making these caraway shortcake biscuits. They also feed caraway seeds to chickens and ducks to produce the Goosnargh Chicken and the Goosnargh Duck.

But the biscuits. There are a few versions online, but basically the Goosnargh Cake or caraway biscuits is a buttery shortcake biscuit with caraway and coriander seeds. Use a basic 3:2:1 recipe (3 parts flour, to 2 parts butter, to 1 part sugar) and you’ll be fine.

Goosnargh Cake

Pre-heat oven to GM5. Prepare a baking tray – either by buttering it and sprinkling it with flour, or by lining it with greaseproof paper. 

  • 8oz softened butter
  • 4oz caster sugar
  • 12oz plain flour
  • 2 TBsp caraway seeds
  • 1 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
  1. Cream together the butter and sugar, till fluffy
  2. Grind the caraway and coriander seeds in a pestle and mortar
  3. Sift together the flour and the ground seeds
  4. Fold the spiced flour into the creamed butter and sugar and bring together to form a stiff dough
  5. Roll out the dough to about 1/2 cm thickness and cut into rounds. Place on baking tray
  6. Pop into the fridge for at least 30 minutes
  7. Sprinkle with caster sugar
  8. Bake in the middle of the oven for 15-20 minutes – you don’t want them to turn colour much at all, although a light golden brown will be fine
  9. Move to a wire rack to cool, but sprinkle with a mix of caster sugar and caraway seeds while they are still hot.

Lovely with a cup of Earl Grey tea.

Goosnargh Cakes

Goosnargh Cakes

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Christmas leftovers (but no turkey)

2 Jan

It’s that time of year when you’re probably still living out of the fridge and store cupboard, still eating up bits of food you bought thinking you’d need it over the festive period. Or perhaps you haven’t over-shopped this year and you are now eating delicious meals started from scratch, made with fresh vegetables and real meat (ie not leftover roast turkey, or cold ham). If so, well done.

But have you still got things lurking in the fridge which you’ve had enough of? Maybe you’ve had enough of Stilton? Or brussels sprouts? If so, I have a couple of recipes for you which might help: Stilton Nibbly Biscuits (gluten free!) and creamy sprouts.

Let me explain first of all about the sprouts. I never thought I would grow to enjoy a sprout, but they are the Captain’s second favourite vegetable! Yes, seriously, they are. His favourite is parsnips, and I think this afternoon I’m going to find a recipe for a parsnip cake just to use up the last of the bag of parsnips I have in the fridge. But, back to the sprouts. I’ve done all manner of things with sprouts to try to enjoy them: added juniper berries, lardons, chestnuts, lots of butter… but all to no avail. Until now. I used what I had in the fridge (as you do at this time of year) and found my perfect Brussels Sprouts recipe. It’s not for the faint hearted, and should be eaten BEFORE you start your diet. But it is delicious with roast pork, or a pork chop, or I can imagine it working really well with sausages and black pudding and some creamy mash.

And then I mentioned Stilton didn’t I? One of my favourite cookbooks over the last year or so is by Thane Prince: Ham, Pickles and Jam. It consistently gives me interesting and useful recipes. One that I keep returning to is for cheesy nibbly biscuits. All you need is about 30 minutes, and food processor and some leftover cheese. OK, and some butter and flour too (preferably gluten free).  I originally wrote about this recipe here, back in 2011.

Over the months I’ve modified the recipe – these days I generally make it with stilton and pretty much always omit the parmesan. Also, when the dough is made I roll it into a great big sausage, and then just slice off pieces to bake them, instead of all that faff with making cherry size pieces and then squishing them flat before rolling them in sesame seeds. The sesame seeds are important though – they add an extra nutty flavour to the biscuit. And I’ve only ever made them with gluten free flour – I love the light crispness you get with this mix.

So, that’s your stilton sorted. Now for the brussels sprouts.

Creamy Brussels Sprouts

Prepare your brussels sprouts by cutting off the wee end, and removing the outer leaf or two if necessary. Then slice the sprouts – you’ll get about 4 or 5 slices out of each sprout, depending on their size. You don’t need to be a perfectionist with this, all you’re doing is cutting down the size of each sprout so they cook through more quickly and evenly.

Put the sliced sprouts into a wide flat pan and throw in some stock (or if you’re me, some water and a stock cube). You don’t need much stock – the idea is that the sprouts will cook in it, but it will boil away. I use about 200ml when cooking enough sprouts for two people.

Now, put a lid on the pan and boil up the sprouts. Remove the lid and stir them around a bit, to make sure all the sprouts are in the water. Put the lid on again if you think you should, but if it’s a tight fitting lid, you might want to leave a slight gap to let some steam out.

Ideally, the sprouts should be just about cooked at the point when the water is just about boiled away.

Throw in about 1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg and a good turn or two of black pepper. Stir. Add a seriously big glug or two of double cream and stir again.

Leave quietly bubbling away while you serve the rest of your food up, and by the time you’ve plated everything else up the sprouts will be ready.

Delicious with roast pork and all the other trimmings, or as I’ve just discovered with Lucas Hollweg’s Beef Casserole with Cinnamon and Prunes. Exquisite!

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The cat’s whiskers

17 Jun

Not really, it’s cat’s tongues. Or Langues de Chat biscuits. But I’ll come to them in a minute.

We had some friends over for supper yesterday. We were going to barbecue, which is lovely and simple and just involves prepping a variety of things and then bringing it all together in a communal cook-a-thon on our most excellent portable barbecue (an upcycled old wheelbarrow).

But it’s Scotland in mid-June so the skies opened and it didn’t stop raining all day long. Add that to a cold wind and it was clearly no evening for a barbecue.

Plan B was homemade burgers. So we had a totally retro meal with prawn cocktail to start (with bought-in iceberg lettuce, because when I went to pick lettuce from the garden I discovered the rabbit had been there before me. Grrrr), and strawberry ripple ice-cream for afters, with langues de chat biscuits.

I could get seriously addicted to these biscuits, so it’s just as well that they are ridiculously easy to make. As far as a biscuit goes, I think these deliver the max on Ease of Making vs Tasty Loveliness. And if you’re careful you can make them look utterly professional in a uniform sort of a way.

Langues de Chat

Preheat oven to 200C / GM6. Lining a baking sheet (or two) with greaseproof paper. Find your piping bag, and fit it with a plain nozzle.

  • 100g icing sugar, sifted
  • 100g softened, unsalted butter
  • 1tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 large egg whites
  • 120g plain flour, sifted
  1. Beat together the icing sugar and butter, till it is soft and fluffy
  2. Add the vanilla and then the egg whites, one at a time, beating well after each addition
  3. Fold in the plain flour
  4. Dollop it all into your piping bag (you know that the easiest way to do this is to put the whole bag into a tall container, folding the bag over the edges, a bit like how you’d line a bin with a bin liner)
  5. Squeeze the mixture onto your baking sheets (if you’re a true professional, you might have drawn lines on your paper, so all the biscuits are the same length. I’m not).. you are probably looking for 2″ long squeezes. They expand a bit on cooking so leave enough room for them to spread out.
  6. Bake for about 8 minutes, until the biscuits are lightly golden and going nicely brown at the edges.
  7. Leave for a minute or two on the baking sheet and then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

These are perfect with ice cream. Or a cup of coffee. Or a bowl of strawberries. Or made into sandwiches with jam, or lemon curd, or chocolate ganache (but do this just before you serve them as they’ll go soft after a wee while).

As an aside, the ice cream I made didn’t work. It turns out that if you don’t put enough sweet stuff in with the cream it stays too hard and feels like solid cream with ice crystals in it. Bah. And in the past I’ve made such nommy ice cream. Never mind. The biscuits were great. So was the company.

Note to self These biscuits only help weight loss if you don’t eat them, or any of the raw mixture. Or perhaps if you limit yourself to only one or two. And I mean only one or two in total, not just one or two at a time. They are seriously more-ish!  But seriously, they come out as such teeny wee light wee biscuits that they might be good for some people on a diet – one or two biscuits might give you enough of a wee sugary hit, without breaking the calorie bank.

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Tollhouse cookies

30 Jan

Tollhouse Cookies are a memory from my childhood. I had a recipe written in my childish hand-writing, which if memory serves me correctly had the list of ingredients but no instructions. I made them so often I didn’t need instructions and so I knew that they were the most delicious of cookies.

I’m pretty sure the recipe came from my Aunt Joyce, the Queen of Baking in my world. And I’m also fairly certain that the recipe is in my mother’s recipe book. So, if I really wanted I could no doubt get back the original, and make them exactly as they were in those eternally sunny summers back in the mid 70s. But I also recall that they had half lard, half butter (or even marg) … and I know that using half lard can make pastry beautifully short, but I don’t think I want to use lard in my biscuits any more. So, if I’m going to play about with the recipe anyway, I may as well just find a new one, and adapt from there.

So, this weekend I did some internet research, so you don’t have to.  Although if you really want to find out more, you can do worse than starting out here on my friend wikipedia.

Now, a bit of background for you. One of the reasons I feel quite so strongly about Tollhouse Cookies might be because my father’s office was in the original Tollhouse in our town.  I know it’s purely circumstantial, and literally hundreds of towns must have their own historical tollhouses, so clearly my recipe was no more authentic than any other. But, my recipe had choc chips AND nuts and I am not about to mess with my memory by either making a Tollhouse Cookie with no nuts, or re-naming the biscuits of my childhood Choc Chip n Nut Cookies.

But anyway, the research revealed a few things about 21st century tollhouse cookies: the butter should be melted and the sugar needs to be a mixture of brown/muscovado and caster – this will give a more caramelly taste and chewy texture, which works for me. And the cookies should be left on their baking sheet once nearly cooked so they complete the cooking out of the oven. No-one seemed to want to put nuts in them though, so feel free to omit them if you want. But then please just call them choc chip cookies.

Tollhouse cookies

Preheat oven to 170C or Gas Mark 3. Grease at least two baking sheets. Or I guess you could line them with baking parchment instead.

170g unsalted butter

250g plain flour

1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

1/2 tsp salt

200g dark brown or muscovado sugar

100g light brown sugar (or caster)

1 TBSp vanilla extract

1 egg + 1 egg yolk

200g dark chocolate, chopped into wee chips

125g mixed nuts, chopped into wee chips. I’ve not tried it, but you could probably use salted nuts if you’re a fan of the sugar-salt-choc thing.

  1. Melt the butter in a big bowl (this is the bowl that the whole mixture is going to end up in so make it big enough). I use a microwave to melt the butter, but of course you could melt it in a pan and then tip it into the bowl.
  2. Sift the flour, bicarb and salt together in a different bowl – this is really just to mix it together, as most flour these days doesn’t need sifting – but it’s an old habit with me, so I like to sift it all
  3. Add the sugars to the melted butter and beat with an electric beater (or a wooden spoon if you want to work off those bingo wings) until you have a light fluffy mixture
  4. Now add the vanilla essence and the eggs and beat some more
  5. Mix in the flour and stuff with a wooden spoon, then mix through the nuts and chocolate chips
  6. Depending how warm your kitchen is, you’ll either have a soft-ish batter, or a much stiffer dough… my kitchen was baltic this weekend, so the butter cooled down quickly and I had quite a stiff dough
  7. Now, how big do you want your cookies? I use about a soup-spoonful of mixture in a big lump, and they spread out to around 3-4 inches diameter.  But you might want to make ENORMOUS cookies like those ones you get at train stations… you’d probably need about 4 TBsps of cookie mixture for that size.
  8. Remember to leave gaps between each dollop of mixture – the larger the dollop the bigger the gap required. For the enormous ones you’ll need at least 3″ I’d say.
  9. Bake for about 16 minutes, but this will depend on which shelf they are on in your oven, how hot the oven actually is and what size you’ve made your cookies. Ideally you need to take them out when they are golden around the edges, but not toasted in the middle. Leave them on the baking tray to cool down, they will continue to cook. Then remove them to a cooling tray. This will give you a slightly chewy cookie, if you prefer them crisper, just keep them in the oven a wee bit longer, till they are uniformly coloured.
  10. Once they are cool, transfer them into two separate airtight containers. Keep one lot at home, and take the rest to your colleagues, or to someone you love (not mutually exclusive).

There!  How easy was that? And according to my colleagues, they’re a winner.
But before you run off to bake cookies, a top tip for you. Some of you will know this already, but if you’re not a baker you might not. Don’t keep opening the oven door to check your cookies, and when you do open the door, be sure to shut it gently afterwards, as slamming it shut will blow in cold air, and mess with the cooking. This is even more important when you’re baking cakes, or anything you expect to rise. If you slam the door, it’s like slamming a big weight onto your delicate cake.
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Nibbles

4 Dec

20180103_121854.jpg

Super easy cheesy sesame biscuits

Are we counting down to Christmas yet?  I am.  In my house, that means practising various recipes to make sure they are up to scratch as Christmas gifts.  And today is nibbles testing.

First off were some cheesy sesame biscuits, which aren’t yet in the oven (they’re doing that resting in the fridge thing, so beloved of pastry-type goods). They were ridiculously easy, and have persuaded me of the value of my food processor.  I’ve owned the food processor for bloody years.  It usually lives on a shelf, just out of reach, under the stairs.  I last used it when I attempted one of Jamie Oliver’s 30 minute meals.  He likes to use a lot of gadgets and I knew if I wanted to be in with a chance of having two courses served up within 45 minutes the food processor would be needed. I actually would have needed two, but that’s another story. It was delicious!

But back to the cheesy sesame biscuits.  They are from my new favourite cook book: Ham, Pickles & Jam by Thane Prince.  It’s a glory of a book – full of reminders of (mostly lost) traditional kitchen skills, like preserving with salt (gravad lax and preserved lemons in this section) and drying (oven-dried tomatoes and beef jerky here).  Sadly most of the drying recipes require a dehydrator, so I may take a while before I get to testing that section.

Oh my, now that I’ve brought the recipe out again to type it up, I see I’ve omitted a key ingredient in the biscuits (how can I do this when there are only 5 ingredients?).  Read on and you’ll see.  And you’ll see my adaptation too.

Cheesy Sesame biscuits

  • 4oz SR flour, or use plain flour and 1 tsp baking powder.  Gluten-free is evidently best, so that is what I have used
  • 3oz butter
  • 3oz blue cheese ( I used a distinctly average dolcelatte from tesco’s but would like to try this with some oozingly yummy gorgonzola next time)
  • 3TBsp parmesan, grated
  • 2-3 TBsp sesame seeds
  1. Place all ingredients except the sesame seeds in the bowl of your food processor and whiz, using short bursts of power, till it combines to make a dough (I forgot to add the parmesan, thinking it was going to be part of the sesame coating at the end… ooopsie)
  2. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill for an hour
  3. Preheat the oven to 220C / 425F / GM7 and grease or line a baking sheet
  4. Remove the dough from the fridge and roll cherry-sized pieces of dough into balls
  5. Roll the balls in sesame seeds (or for me, the mix of sesame seeds and parmesan) and place on the greased baking sheet.  Make an indentation in the centre of each ball with your thumb, or a teaspoon
  6. Bake for 7-10 minutes until golden brown.  Cool on a wire rack
  7. Perfect with an aperitif!!!  A nice wee sherry I think.

So… I clearly failed that recipe, but I suspect they will be tasty all the same.

Edited February 2018 to add:

Instead of rolling these into individual balls, roll the whole lot of dough into one big sausage (stage 2) and leave in the fridge for a while. When you take it out, slice it up. Pour a whole lot of sesame seeds onto a plate and press each slice into the sesame seeds to cover them. Place them seed side up onto a greased baking sheet and bake for 6-7 mins as above. They looks pretty special done this way (see pic above). 

While the dough has been in the fridge (and I’ve made our Christmas cake, and lunch) I also made some spicy nuts.  Also from Thane Prince, but to be honest I went a bit off-piste with this recipe too, which I think is the whole point of this one.  But, if you want to make your own roasted spicy nuts, here you go:

Roasted spicy nuts

  • 250g nuts (I used a mixture of cashews and blanched almonds)
  • some olive oil
  • 1 tsp raw egg white (not sure this is entirely necessary)
  • 1 TBsp salt flakes – use the best quality salt you can find
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds, roasted and finely ground

Preheat oven to 150C / 300F / GM2

  1. Drizzle some oil on a baking sheet
  2. Place the nuts on a single layer on the baking sheet
  3. Roast in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes, till a pale golden brown
  4. While they are in the oven, use a teeny tiny whisk and try to whisk up the wee bit of egg white, really just to break it down a bit
  5. And use a pestle and mortar to grind the salt and mix with the cumin. I went off-recipe and just threw some cayenne pepper in with the salt once I’d ground it a bit with the pestle and mortar
  6. As soon as the nuts are out of the oven, turn them in the egg white, which is meant to turn them glossy.  I didn’t notice any glossiness, but it doesn’t seem to have done any harm, and I had a spare egg white from the biscuits I made yesterday, so that was ok.
  7. Once you’ve tossed your nuts in the egg white, throw the salt and spice mix over them and toss some more.  The flavours will dry on as the nuts cool
  8. Keep in an airtight container, unless you are eating immediately with drinkies.  More sherry I think!

I suspect that both of these will end up as Christmas gifts. Further copies of the book might too, if books are allowed in our homemade Christmas again this year.

Next weekend I’m baking a ham. Any suggested recipes or just general ideas for what to do gratefully received (and brutally altered to fit whatever I have in the cupboard and what mood I’m in).

later…

OK… I baked the cheesy sesame biscuits and they are just scrumptious! They are light and crumbly, and have a great blue cheesy flavour, with that typical ‘back’ flavour that comes with a strong blue cheese.  Make them!  they are delicious,  and would be even nicer with a wee glass of something to accompany them.  Pictures will follow.

A few days later… and here is a promised picture.  OK, I know I promised pictures, but you’re just getting one for just now.

Nummy nibbles

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Nutty biscuits

20 Nov

Ginger nutty goodness

When I was wee my two favourite things to bake were peanut butter cookies and tollhouse cookies.  One of these days I’ll dig out the old recipes, if I can find them – the tollhouse cookies recipe I’m pretty sure was from my Aunt Joyce, a brilliant cook and a seriously good baker.  One of my happiest childhood memories is sitting on the bench at her enormous kitchen table while she made pancakes (drop scones to non-Scots) on the rayburn beside us.  It seemed to take her only minutes from having independent ingredients to  these perfect warm pillows of baked goodness, spread with homemade raspberry jam.  Yum.

Yesterday I saw a Jamie Oliver recipe for Nutty Ginger Biscuits, and realised it was a pimped up version of my old peanut butter cookies.  So, I made them this morning.  They are indeed a more sophisticated biscuit than mine ever were, but then it was the 70s when I was baking them, less sophisticated times, especially for rural 12 year olds.

This recipe makes a light crumbly biscuit, not a chewy cookie.  The clementine zest definitely adds a touch of class, and next time I make them I will add some ginger to the dough as well as the nubbin of the crystallised ginger on top.

The recipe comes from Jamie Oliver’s magazine and I’ll be making his Jerky Hocks later, with two enormous ham hocks.  If it works, I’ll share.  I’ve slightly adapted the cookie recipe here, so if you want the original you need to buy his lovely magazine.

Nutty Ginger Biscuits

250g unsalted butter, softened.

140g sugar (I used a mixture of half and half caster and light muscovado)

1 egg yolk (I’ll make meringues later with the white)

2 TBsp crunchy peanut butter (I added 3)

Grated zest of 2 clementines

300g plain flour

2-3 balls of stem ginger from a jar

A few TBsp of desiccated coconut

Preheat oven to 180C / GM4. Line a couple of baking trays with greaseproof paper.

  1. If the room temperature of your kitchen is as cold a mine, soften your butter.  My mum will do this by leaving it near the rayburn for a while.  But she doesn’t bake any more, so it’s unlikely to happen.  I cut mine into big chunks, put it in the large bowl and zizzed it in the microwave for 40s at half power.  Don’t even attempt this recipe with hard butter
  2. Add the sugar to the butter and beat until light and creamy
  3. Add the egg yolk, clementine zest and peanut butter.  Jamie added some vanilla essence here too, but I forgot and they still tasted yummy
  4. Beat again till combined
  5. Sift in the flour, and mix all together with a large metal spoon.  or wooden would do I suppose.  But don’t use electric beaters – you are just combining at this stage, not attempting to beat more air into it (which I suspect would be self-defeating).
  6. Now, take dessertspoonful size nubbins of dough and evenly space them on the baking sheets.  Squish them down a little, so they are sort of cookie shaped.
  7. Put a wee bit of ginger into the top of each biscuit, and sprinkle with desiccated coconut.
  8. Bake for 9-12 minutes, till golden brown
  9. Let sit on the baking tray for a minute before transferring them to a wire rack to cool.

Freezing biscuit dough.  Have you ever done it? I can’t say I have.  But Jamie says that these freeze well – just freeze them once they are on sheets of greaseproof paper in their rough cookie shapes.  Once frozen, they could probably be stored in a bag, or tub.  To cook from frozen, bake at 180C / GM4 for 10-15 mins till golden. Now, how brilliant would that be?  Must try harder not to bake them all at once next time.

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Melting moments

30 Oct

So, this is a recipe I used to make years ago, when I was a teenager.  The original recipe is from Rosemary Wadey’s Cakes and Cake Decorating which I think I bought with either school prize money, or a Christmas book token when I was about 14 years old.  It has some of my favourite biscuit recipes: Grantham Gingers, Oat Crisps, Viennese Biscuits and the easiest of all: 1-2-3 biscuits.  But perhaps my favourite was Melting Moments – they are easy to make, look as though you might have bought them and taste scrumptiously delicious.

And they can be adapted. The basic recipe is for vanilla biscuits, rolled in scrunchy cornflakes before they are cooked, and with a nub of glace cherry on top.  When I made them recently I realised we only had chocolate weetabix in the cupboard, no plain cornflakes.  So, I made chocolate melting moments, rolled in scrunchy chocolate weetabix, still with a nub of glace cherry on top.

Chocolate cookies

Anyway, here we go:

Melting Moments

6oz butter (or half and half, butter and lard – oh yes, this recipe is so old that it uses lard.  But in reality, lard can create a shorter texture for biscuits). Soften the butter before you start cooking (so you might want to leave it out in the kitchen for a while before you start)

5oz caster sugar

1 egg, beaten

10oz self raising flour, sifted

1 tsp vanilla essence

about 2oz cornflakes, crushed (use a small plastic bag and scrunch them)

8 glace cherries, quartered

Pre-heat oven to 180C / 350F / GM4. Grease 2 baking sheets

  1. Beat the butter until soft, then add the sugar and cream until light and fluffy.  This is the most important step in this recipe – if the butter and sugar isn’t creamed properly the mixture won’t be light enough
  2. Beat in the egg and vanilla essence
  3. Work in the flour to give a fairly stiff dough
  4. Take dessertspoonfuls of mixture and roll them into balls
  5. Roll each ball in crushed cornflakes and place fairly well apart on the baking sheet
  6. Flatten the balls of mixture slightly and press a piece of cherry into the centre of each ball
  7. Bake for 15 – 20 mins or till golden brown.
  8. Cool on a wire rack and store in an airtight container.
Alternate versions:
Replace 1-2 oz of flour with 1-2oz of cocoa powder and about 1/2 tsp baking powder.
You can also replace some of the flour with custard powder to give a smoother and creamier biscuit.  Again, just swap some of the flour for custard powder, and add a wee bit of baking powder.
I think they would be nice with a wee bit of chopped ginger (you know, the stuff out of the jar) in them.  But then I love gingery things.  You would probably want to replace the glace cherry with a nubbin of ginger too.  Yum.

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Lemon kisses

11 Sep

It’s Autumn. It has to be – it’s Sunday and we lit the fire mid morning and just hung around and read the papers.

The Sunday Times is our paper of choice; well it’s his paper of choice and I really don’t mind.  I love AA Gill‘s writing and generally read most of the main paper, the news review section and one or two of the features in the magazine.

So far today all I’ve managed is the main paper, until I got too cross about the article on obesity – GPs are offering people gastric band surgery, and the mayor of somewhere or other says that poor people can only afford junk food.  A gastric band should not and must not be seen as an easy solution to obesity – sensible eating and taking more exercise have to come first.  And anyone who believes that junk food is cheaper than fresh food should actually look at what they are eating, and what they could eat if they cooked from scratch.  Fresh veg is not an expensive option, and I don’t believe that junk food is cheaper than a pot of homemade soup.

I’ve been overweight all my life, despite eating relatively healthily (if you believe that relatively low fat, fresh food is healthy).  I live a pretty sedentary life and haven’t exercised for years, literally years.  I’m not proud of this.

I have never thought that a gastric band could be the answer, but have tried weight watchers and other calorie based diets in the past.  Nothing has felt easy for me and the weight has always crept back on.  It’s hard to keep it off when cooking and baking are such enjoyable and key activities in my life.

In July this year I saw a nutritionist.  She asked me thousands of questions, and ‘prescribed’ a low carb diet for me.  No carbs for breakfast, and low carbs for the rest of the day – concentrate on proteins and green veg; avoid white processed carbs, and avoid fruit juice.  In fact avoid most fruit, especially bananas.  I’ve not had a glass of fruit juice or a banana since.  And so far I’ve lost 11lbs and feel healthier than I have in years.  And I’ve never felt hungry, or struggled to know what to eat.

Now, I’m not suggesting that all obese people try this – but it works for me.  I have a metabolism that copes well with this regime.  From day one I haven’t craved a carb, and the best thing about this eating regime is that there are just whole aisles in the supermarket that I just walk past.  Why walk down the bread aisle if I’m not going to eat processed carbs?  In fact, apart from household stuff, I pretty much just go to the meat/fish/dairy and veg aisles and leave all the others.  I’m discovering some interesting new flavour combinations, and now know that I don’t need pasta or rice or potatoes or bread to bulk out a meal for me to feel satisfied.

One disadvantage is that it is not a cheap way of eating as protein rich meals tend to be more expensive than carb rich meals.  Swapping my porridge for scrambled eggs for breakfast may help my weight-loss, but does not help the bank balance.

However, I’m buying more sensibly and not throwing out as much food as I used to, so perhaps it’s balancing out.

Anyway, you might be wondering why this is called lemon kisses if it’s all just about obesity.  I warn you, lemon kisses are not going to help in any diet, whether you are low fat, low carb, low calorie.  It’s got them all.  But oh, they are so light and buttery.  And lemony.

Autumn Sundays aren’t just for getting cross at the papers. They also need to involve lots of good kitchen time – yesterday I made some sweet gherkin pickle (so easy and so delicious) and today is all about the baking.  And knitting.  More on the knitting soon.

But back to the lemon kisses.

I first made them back at the beginning of the year, and then promptly forgot where I’d put the recipe.  So, I googled today, and here they are, courtesy of the BBC Good Food website.  A batch is in the oven right now.

Lemon kisses

200g butter, at room temperature (or warmer if your kitchen is as cold as mine)

140g caster sugar

1 egg yolk

1 tsp vanilla extract

zest of 1 lemon

280g plain flour

And for the filling and icing:

1/2 jar lemon curd (preferably home made – go on, it really is deliciously simple to make and who hasn’t got 30 minutes to make a jar of lemony loveliness?)

zest of 1 lemon

juice of 1 lemon

140g icing sugar

Oven 180C, GM6

  1. Mix the butter, sugar, vanilla extract, egg yolk and lemon zest with a wooden spoon in a large bowl
  2. Add the flour and mix together – you may struggle to get it all to bind with the spoon, so tip it out and lightly knead it together with your hands
  3. Roll out (I do it in two batches) on a lightly floured surface and cut into cute little biscuit shapes
  4. Place on baking trays and pop in the fridge for about 30 mins
  5. Bake for 8-12 minutes till golden. Cool on a wire rack
  6. When cool, spread half the biscuits with a little lemon curd, and sandwich each with a second biscuit
  7. Mix the lemon juice and icing sugar, and drizzle over the biscuits; sprinkle with lemon zest.  Leave to set on a wire rack
  8. Eat. In moderation.
One of my favourite easy puddings is a pretendie lemon ripple ice cream, made with a couple of scoops of nice vanilla ice cream (not too sweet a brand) and some lemon curd swirled through it as it’s served.  Serve with lemon kisses.  I guess you could go mad and do a lemony knickerbocker glory with ice cream, fresh cream, lemon curd and lemon kisses. Perhaps even some crumbled lemon kisses over the top of the glory as decoration? Over to you – just remember that eating a knickerbocker glory every day is probably not the best way to get a portion of your five a day.  You heard it here first.

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My first Daring Bakers Challenge

3 Mar

I’ve recently discovered more food-related blogs than is good for me.  I like to browse them, see what other people are cooking around the world and pick up inspiration.

And then I discovered the Daring Kitchen.  This is a blog with a difference – each month we are all challenged to make a particular recipe.  This month was my first Daring Bakers Challenge, and I’ve actually done it!  I’m so excited.

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

I had a practice run of the Panna Cotta last weekend at the valley, a delicious vanilla panna cotta, with a coffee gelee.  And then separately I practiced the florentines, here in Bruntsfield. They were lovely, but hadn’t spread properly and it felt the recipe should have had some bicarbonate of soda to make them work.  Never mind, my colleagues loved them.

So, the final version is a chocolate panna cotta, with orange gelee; accompanied by orange florentines. It all looks pretty tasty, and if you like bitter chocolate and orange together then you’ll love this.

I slightly adapted the recipes. And hope the next challenge is slightly less fattening.  I suspect I hope in vain.

Chocolate Panna Cotta

Recipe adapted from Bon Appetit

Ingredients:
1 cup (240 ml) whole milk
1 tablespoon (15 ml) (7 gm) (¼ oz) unflavored powdered gelatin
2 cups (480 ml) whipping cream (30+% butterfat)
½ cup (115 gm) (4 oz) sugar
¾ cup (145 gm)(5 oz) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
½ teaspoon (2½ ml) vanilla extract

Directions:

  1. Pour milk into a small bowl, sprinkle gelatin over the top, set aside for 2-5 minutes.
  2. Place a medium saucepan over medium heat, stir in cream, sugar and vanilla. Bring to a low boil.
  3. Add chocolate and whisk until melted. Whisk the milk/gelatin mixture into chocolate cream mixture. Whisk until gelatin has dissolved.
  4. Transfer to ramekins, or nice glasses for serving.
  5. Cover and chill at least 8 hours, or overnight

Nestle Florentine Cookies

Recipe from the cookbook “Nestle Classic Recipes”
Ingredients:

2/3 cup (160 ml) (150 gm) (5.3 oz) unsalted butter

2 cups (480 ml) (160 gm) (5 2/3 oz) quick oats
1 cup (240 ml) (230 gm) (8 oz) granulated sugar
2/3 cup (160 ml) (95 gm) (3⅓ oz) plain (all purpose) flour
1/4 cup (60 ml) golden syrup
1/4 cup (60 ml) whole milk
1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1½ cups (360 ml) (250 gm) (9 oz) dark or milk chocolate

Directions:

Preheat oven to moderately hot 375°F (190°C) (gas mark 5). Prepare your baking sheet with silpat or parchment paper.
1. Warm the butter, sugar and syrup in a medium saucepan.  Stir together to form a gloopy thick syrup, then remove from the heat.
2. To the melted butter mixture add oats, flour, milk, vanilla, and salt. I also added 1 tsp bicarb of soda.  And replaced the vanilla with the grated zest of two oranges.  Mix well. Drop a tablespoon full, three inches (75 mm) apart, onto your prepared baking sheet. Flatten slightly with the back of your tablespoon, or use a spatula. I didn’t bother flattening the mixture and they managed to spread themselves out nicely enough.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 5 minutes, until cookies are golden brown. Cool on the baking sheets.
4. While the cookies are cooling melt your chocolate until smooth either in the microwave (1 1/2 minutes), or stovetop (in a double boiler, or a bowl that fits atop a saucepan filled with a bit of water, being sure the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl).
5. Peel the cookies from the silpat or parchment and place face down on a wire rack set over a sheet of wax/parchment paper (to keep counters clean).
6. Spread a tablespoon of chocolate on the bottom/flat side of your cookie, sandwiching another (flat end) cookie atop the chocolate.
This recipe will make about 2 1/2 – 3 dozen sandwiched Florentine cookies. You can also choose not to sandwich yours, in which case, drizzle the tops with chocolate (over your wax paper).

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Sugar biscuits

1 Jan

These are a classic roll ’em and cut ’em out biscuit.  They are plain, in that they are vanilla flavoured, although the recipe suggests you could add some finely chopped nuts or coconut to the recipe.  I’ve never tried this, and not sure it would be worth it.  Sometimes you are just in the mood for an ordinary biscuit.

Sugar biscuits

175g / 7oz SR flour

pinch of salt

25g / 1oz cornflour

100g / 4oz butter

100g / 4oz caster sugar

1 egg (or it says you can use 2 egg yolks, which I guess would work if you were making meringues, or a mousse)

1/4 tsp vanilla essence

a little milk

More caster sugar, or glace icing for dredging once they are cooked

Grease 2 or 3 baking sheets. Oven 200ºC / 400ºF / Gas Mark 6.

  1. Sift the flour, salt and cornflour into a bowl.  I don’t think you need to do this any more.  This is an old book – I must have bought it in 1979 – and in those days the flour needed to be sifted.  The milling process has since improved and there is less need to sift flour for baking).
  2. Add the butter in wee chunks (straight from the fridge, it works best if cold) and rub in with your fingers until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.  Try to add air into the mixture at this stage, by lifting your hands up from the mixture to rub, and letting it drizzle back down through your fingers.
  3. Beat together the egg and the vanilla essence and add to the mixture.
  4. Mix together and slightly knead to form a fairly soft dough.  Add a little milk if necessary.
  5. Wrap in cling film or  foil and leave to cool in the fridge for 30 minutes.
  6. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out to about 5mm / 1/4″ thick.  Use whatever cookie cutters you have to cut shapes (preferably about 5cm / 2″ diameter) and place on the baking sheets.
  7. Bake in the pre-heated moderately hot oven for 8 – 10 mins or until lightly golden brown.
  8. Remove to a wire rack and either dredge with caster sugar while still warm, or wait until they cool and ice with glace icing.

This should make 30 – 40 biscuits.

This recipe is from one of my oldest and most loved and used recipe books: Cakes and Cake Decorating by Rosemary Wadey.  I bought it when I was in my early teens, and spent many a happy weekend and evening trying out new recipes.  I ticked each recipe off as I tried it at one point, but sadly left no notes, or other comment, such as a date.

I fell in love with the Grantham Gingers, a surprisingly hollow wee dome shaped biscuit, light and crisp, and delicately gingery.  And then there were the Danish Pastries – a triumph! And after my grandfather died, I made virtually every teabread in the book for his wake.   Perhaps it was then that I first discovered the  therapeutic power of getting into the kitchen and baking.

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