Tag: Biscuits

Home made crackers

Home made crackers

Ingredients Method Heat oven to 180 degrees celsius and line two 20 x 30cm baking trays with baking paper In a medium bowl, mix together masa flour, seeds and the teaspoon of sea salt. Add the olive oil and boiling water. Mix together until all 

Cashew butter cookies – vegan + gluten free

Cashew butter cookies – vegan + gluten free

Ingredients Method About this recipe Struggling to come up with vegan and gluten free baking ideas? Then let cashew butter be your friend. My lovely Fix and Fogg jar of cashew butter was a gift and gosh I love it. It’s creamy and rich and 

Spicy oat and sunflower bites

Spicy oat and sunflower bites

Do you get to feeling nibbly late afternoon? Does your mouth start watering as you fantasise about stuffing large handfuls of salt and vinegar chips into your mouth alongside stacks of delicious lovely cheese? Well, friends, have I got a deal for you. Because while my brain would like to cram in a whole lot of fat and salt at 4pm on the dot, my body would not thank me.

These bites will trick your mouth into thinking it’s had a whole lot more salt and fat that you’ve provided. They are pretty generously spiced with the merest smidgen of sharp cheese to ensure you get a flavour hit. There’s a reasonable about of healthy, non-animal based oil as I find it not only helps with satiety but also gives these a lovely, crumbly and slightly luxurious texture. Finally, the sunflower seeds toast up beautifully during baking to give a little crunch.

The secret it to keep them bite-sized. You just want one to pop into your mouth for a savoury pick-me-up, and they get in unmanageably crumbly if much bigger than a teaspoonful.

Ingredients

1 c oats

1 c plain flour, sifted

1 t each of chilli flakes and ground black pepper

1/4 t cayenne pepper

Pinch salt

1/2 c sunflower seeds

1/4 c sharp cheese, grated

1/2 c rapeseed oil

1 egg, lightly beaten

Method

Set the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Line two baking trays with grease proof paper.

Mix together oats, flour, spices and seasoning in a large bowl.

Add the seeds and cheese and stir to combine.

Add the egg and oil. Mix and form into a stiff ball of dough, using your hands to shape and mould the dough.

Place teaspoonfuls of dough onto baking trays, using your hands to squeeze together loose crumbs.

Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Cool on a baking wrack.

Homemade Hundreds and Thousands biscuits

Toddlers and sugar, a match made in heaven?  Probably not for their parents, but when it’s your niece’s third birthday party and you said you’d make biscuits, it’s hardly time to skimp on the sugar. I was inspired to make these little numbers by one 

Sage and cheddar biscuits or, what to do with sage?

What to do with sage? Make buttery, cheesy sage and cheddar biscuits?  Yes please. I’ve found myself with a reasonably plentiful supply of fresh sage, which is a new thing.  I have always managed to grow parsley and been left perplexed at how to use the 

Edmonds Cookbook ANZAC biscuits

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It is indeed a happy accident, that my arrival at ANZAC biscuits in the Edmonds Cook Book as I head forth in my self-imposed Edmonds Challenge has coincided so closely with ANZAC Day.

ANZAC Day always puts me in mind of Aud and Reg, my Granma and Grandad on my Dad’s side.  Along with many others, my grandparents were part of World War II. Grandad went away with the Royal Air Force, and Granma was a WAF.  The milk bottle in the picture above was once theirs, and I used it in a little homage to them.

Here’s a photo of Aud and Reg below; I think from my Grandad’s cryptic title (“four years ‘ard labour”) and the pile of paper in front of them, they are sitting in front of all of the letters they exchanged while Grandad was abroad.  He looks rather Don Draper, although that’s where the comparison ends…he was a most morally upstanding man and a teetotaller to boot.

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ANZAC biscuits enjoy a historical pedigree dating back to World War I, where their ancestor-biscuits of oats, golden syrup, sugar and four were sold at fetes and galas at home to raise money for the troops.  After Gallipoli the term ANZAC was born, and the ANZAC biscuit followed, first appearing in a cook book in 1921.

It is of course unthinkable that Edmonds, holding its bible-like status in the New Zealand baking canon, would not have a recipe for ANZAC biscuits, and indeed I, personally, would not use any other.  So without further ado, see below for Edmonds’ ANZAC biscuit recipe

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Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup plain flour
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 2/3 cup desiccated coconut
  • 3/4 rolled oats
  • 50g butter
  • 1 T golden syrup
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 2 T boiling water

Heat the oven to180 degrees Celsius. Mix together the flour, sugar, coconut in a large-ish bowl.  Melt together the golden syrup and butter (I did this in a little dish in the microwave).  Dissolve the baking soda into the water and add it to the butter and syrup.  It will bubble and fizz in an awesome kind of way.

Mix the butter mixture with the dry ingredients and place tablespoonfuls on a cold, greased tray.  I must confess I used a cookie cutter to shape them; I’m sure this is not authentic, but I had some new cutters and I was looking for a chance to use them. Bake for 15 minutes or until they are golden and crispy.

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Chocolate and ginger Anzac biscuits

These little lovelies simply wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the mighty Anzac biscuit, which inspired me with its comforting blend of oats and golden syrup. I shan’t be going into too much more detail on this point, because Anzac biscuits will be coming up 

Ginger shortbread with orange curd

Ginger shortbread with orange curd

This idea came to me by accident, really.  I’m always a fan of shortbread, so any excuse for that.  But the orange part happened when a lonely orange, languishing in the fruit bowl, happened to cross my field of vision whilst I was enjoying a Sunday morning 

Raspberry Rings…with jam and Nutella

Raspberry Rings…with jam and Nutella

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Lucky me, to receive this lovely baking book for my birthday from my similarly kitchen-obsessed little sister.  Alice Arndell’s Alice in Bakingland is a treat for the eyes as much as anything, full of pictures of dainty plates, matching teacup-and-saucer sets, all showing off delightful mounds of delicious cakes and biscuits.  Squeal!

So of course it was absolutely necessary that I set about testing some of these recipes as a matter of priority.  These Raspberry Rings happen to be the very first recipe of the book.  Yes, I was only one recipe in when I came across my first ‘must bake.’ I prefer to think this says more about the calibre of the recipes and less about just plain greediness on my part.
To make Alice’s lovely Raspberry Rings, I started by creaming together 200g softened butter and half a cup of sugar, then beating in 4 tablespoons of condensed milk, as directed. Readers of my blog may be aware of my love of creamed butter and sugar. Condensed milk does nothing to dampen the flame.
I continued to add the required 2 tablespoons of milk, 2 cups of plain flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon of salt.  The recipe asks that one shapes the dough into two flat discs, wraps in plastic wrap and refrigerates.  Here are mine:
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After half an hour in the chiller, one disc of dough is rolled out onto a very well floured board.  And can I stress here the importance of lots of flour from my personal experience…it’s always a little upsetting to pick one’s hard-earned dough from the roller.  Alice directs that the dough is rolled out to 4mm thickness, and 5mm rounds are cut from the dough.  I have a lovely star-shaped cookie cutter that I simply don’t get to use enough, so I decided to do some star-shaped biscuits as well.
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Now the surgical precision really begins….the next step is to cut little shapes from the centre of these rounds (and stars, in my case).  I recommend a good sharp knife for this.
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The second disc of dough becomes the bottom layer of the biscuits, so I made a second set of rounds and stars.  The biscuits are baked at 190 degrees celsius until just going brown around the edges – this took about 10 minutes in my oven.  Once cool, it’s time to sandwich the biscuits.  Alice’s recipe asks for a teaspoon of jam, and I used mixed berry for about half of mine.
For the other half, I had a brainwave…Nutella.  This delightful chocolate and nut spread billed as some kind of health breakfast condiment is usually something I eat from the jar with a spoon, so the step to delicious chocolately cement for biscuits wasn’t too difficult at all.
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A gentle dusting with icing sugar and they are ready to go.  The verdict?  Both pretty and scrumptious.  I can’t wait to try some more from this book.
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Spiced maple biscuits

Spiced maple biscuits

Who doesn’t love a bit of maple syrup?  The indigenous people of the Americas were the first to harvest maple sap.  One legend credits the humble squirrel with its discovery, telling of a young boy who watched a red squirrel nip at the bark of a maple