Okay- these biscuits only have 3 ingredients! That’s right! They are so good. I’ve gotta give it up to my girl, Paula Deen for making these simple biscuits that are now a staple in my household. Enjoy!

Paula Deen’s Cream Biscuits

Ingredients

• 2 cups self-rising flour, plus more for dusting
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

Directions

Preheat oven to 500 degrees F.( I baked mine on 450 degrees for 10-13 minutes.)

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, and cream until the dough forms a ball. Turn the dough out onto a surface dusted with additional flour. Fold the dough in 1/2 and knead 5 to 7 times, adding just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to your hands. Gently roll out dough to 1/2-inch thickness. Using a 3-inch biscuit cutter ( I didn’t have a biscuit cutter so I used a water glass- worked great!) coated with flour, cut dough into biscuits. Place on baking sheet coated with cooking spray, leaving at least 1-inch between each biscuit. Bake for 10 minutes, or until golden brown.

I love anything with marzipan or almonds, for me it denotes Christmas whether on an English Christmas cake, in Stollen or just in bars covered in chocolate.

I have found a supply of German chocolate covered marzipan bars in New World, one of our local super markets, it’s the first time I have seen this product available and I’m not ashamed to admit I have purchased and consumed quite a few bars in the last few weeks. Each time I go to the supermarket the shelf containing them doesn’t seem to have diminished so I feel I should try and deplete their stock so they feel it is a popular product and buy it again next year ;o) All in the name of a good cause of course, someone might have to roll me into the New Year though!

Since I have the almond craving at the moment I decided to make Amaretti biscuits, I have always liked them and in the back of my mind I knew I had seen somewhere that there was a recipe for ‘chewy’ biscuits rather than the crunchy one I have bought in the past. I found this recipe from Smitten Kitten, who has such a beautiful website. I have modified my recipe since I was using ground almonds not paste and added the Amaretto liqueur to help create my own paste. It is an incredibly easy recipe.

• 200g ground almonds
• 2 tblsp amaretto liqueur
• 1 cup sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 2 large egg whites at room temperature for at least 30 minutes

Method

1. Preheat oven to 150°C and place racks in the upper and lower thirds of your oven. Line two large sheet pans with greaseproof paper.
2. Pulse ground almonds, sugar, salt and amaretto in a food processor until blended.
3. Add egg whites and pulse until smooth. Transfer batter to pastry bag fitted with a 3/8-inch tip and pipe 3/4-inch rounds (1/3 inch high) about 1-inch apart in pans.
4. Dip a fingertip in water and gently tamp down any peaks.
5. Bake, rotating and switching position of pans halfway through, until golden and puffed, 15 to 18 minutes.
6. Mine didn’t puff up as much as Smitten Kittens did but maybe because I used egg left over whites which I had defrosted. Although they turned out the shape I would expect for amaretti biscuits. They were crisp on the outside and chewy in the centre.
7. Let me know how yours turn out if you make them.

Let cookies cool almost completely in their pans. Once cool, they’re much easier to cleanly remove from the parchment. You can make them into sandwich cookies but spreading some jam (I used raspberry) between them or ganache (3 ounces of semi-sweet chips melted with 1 to 2 tablespoons of cream, then left to thicken a bit would be enough to sandwich the whole batch).

Cookies can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for a day or two or frozen up to one month.

I made dinner. It was delicious. I’ve been “eating down the cupboards” recently. I picked up a bag of Ida Red apples from Adam’s recently (delicious variety if you ever get to try it – not the most crisp of apples, but definitely up there for intense flavor!), had plenty of onions on hand, had some fresh green beans that needed eating, half a batch of biscuit dough in the fridge, and two left in a pack of six kielbasa sausages.

So, I made apples ‘n’ onions with sausages, green beans, and biscuits with honey butter! It was delicious. See?

That, by the way, is the only enameled cast-iron pan that I own, and I love it! It is brown and white and from the 1970s and from Norway! Mom gave it to me before my move. Here’s more deliciousness…

And here’s what was for dinner yesterday:

Barbecue chicken with collard greens! I cheated and used bottled sauce and frozen collards, but it still turned out quite lovely! I’m dutifully trying to take more pictures to live up to other photo/cooking blogs out there. : )

Did I mention I made rice pudding?

Mmmm… apple cinnamon arborio rice pudding! So delicious. The boy dove in as soon as he got home. He didn’t even wait until after dinner! Lol…

I’ve also been trying to make smaller portions of dinner lately. So far, it’s been working out pretty well! I still make too much soup, but I’ve been cutting it down a bit. So I’m proud of myself. I’m also proud of myself for trying to creative in eating what we have. So far, I think I’ve been doing pretty well. It’s nice to have a little extra room in the fridge! I still have leftovers, but they’re the kind of leftovers that can be consumed in one meal or incorporated into another meal, instead of having days and days of meals out of one pot of soup or skillet of rice & beans. I just have to keep reminding myself that there are just two of us!

You know what else I’ve discovered? When you use a smaller pan/pot, you make less food! Shocking revelation, I know, but it’s not something I’d really ever thought about before.

Anywho, off to do a little necessity shopping at Target. And try to avoid spending any more money than absolutely necessary.

4oz Flour

20z Caster Sugar

1tspn Bi Carb Soda

2 tspn Ground Ginger

1tspn Ground Nutmeg

2 tbspn Butter

3 tbspn Golden Syrup

Sift the flour, spices and bi carb together and then add the sugar. Melt the butter in a pan and then add the syrup, heat for about half a min on a low heat being careful not to burn. Add the dry ingreadients to this mixture and stir together until a dough is formed. You can either shape the dough into biscuits by rolling smallish pieces into balls and then squashing them onto a GREASED baking tray or you can roll out the dough and use a cookie cutter to cut out the shapes that you want, I used a christmas bell. Place the buiscuits onto a GREASED baking tray leaving space between them because they do spread, bake on a low heat, gasmark 4 or 5 for around 15 mins or until browned. Leave to cool on the baking tray for haf an hour and then use a palette knife to remove them. They can be decorated with icing if wanted! Yum!

There are strange things you have to get used to in a different country. American taps turn the other way, did you know? I keep accidentally soaking myself when I’m trying to turn them off. And the supermarket was a revelation: you can get things like raspberry-flavoured Philadelphia at Walmart. Initially I found the thought repulsive, but I suppose it’s only cheesecake in a box.

It’s lovely to be without a schedule for once. It’s five to twelve, and while I’ve showered and dressed, Tim is still in pyjamas doing what he calls a ‘holiday dance’ in the middle of the living room. It’s somewhere between a skip and a gambol, and may well be caused by the amount of root beer he’s consumed already this morning. Yesterday morning was the same. After waking up, we had biscuits with butter and jam for breakfast. I mean Southern biscuits, i.e. scones, and you’re supposed to eat them with sausage burgers and some sort of sick white gravy, but I can only ever eat scones with butter and jam. They came in a magic exploding tin – you just press the side with a knife and it springs open to reveal a roll of ready-cut dough. Some of them come with cinnamon icing. It’s beautiful. I wonder how many I can fit in a suitcase. Afterwards we got ready at leisure and left Tim playing on the Wii while Mum and I went to Walmart to buy Christmas lunch food.

Supermarket shopping here is brilliant fun. The only things I couldn’t find were decent chocolate and bread that doesn’t contain three tons of sugar, but everything else you can imagine comes in about twenty different varieties, none of them made with any pronounceable ingredients. If I lived here, I’m sure I’d be twice my current size. I’d probably also be wearing a special Christmas jumper, as most people in Walmart were: Rudolph shirts, blouses with embroidered holly on the front, Santa earrings. All very festive. And everyone you talk to does a double-take when they hear your accent. Being English is seemingly a ticket to minor stardom, which kind of makes me want to run with it and go around talking like the Queen and wearing tweed. I’m resisting the impulse so far, but it’s only a matter of time before I crack. Watch this space.

Oh, excuse me. Tim is back from the shower and doing a reprise of the holiday dance, and this time I’ve had enough root beer to join him.

Coffee and a good home made rusk or biscuit snuggled on the couch…now is that not just the perfect way to relax!  Not to mention the glorious smells that fill the house when baking biscuits..can’t help but feel a little nostalgic.

So to start off I came across this awesome recipe for Health Rusks and gave it a bash.  To be honest what I love so much about this recipe is that you can add nuts, cranberries, dried citrus fruit, pumpkin seeds, pretty much anything your tummy desires and it works!

Ingredients

• 1kg self-raising flour
• 10ml salt
• 10ml baking powder
• 500ml brown sugar
• 500ml rolled oats
• 750ml all bran flakes
• 500ml sunflower seeds
• 250ml seedless raisins
• 2 eggs
• 500ml buttermilk
• 500g butter melted

Method

1. Combine the dry ingredients

2. Whisk together the eggs, buttermilk and melted butter.

3. Combine the two mixtures and mix into a dough.

4. Spoon into a large, deep, greased baking tin and smooth the top.

5. Using a sharp knife, mark out rectangles, which will make it easier to break into rusks after drying.

6. Bake at 180 deg C for 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the oven and thickness of the rusks.

7. Remove from the oven, leave to cool slightly, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

Break into fingers, return to a baking tin and dry the rusks out in a cool oven for about 4 hours or leave them in the warming draw overnight.

Depending on the size, this recipe will yield 80-100 rusks

Next for the dunking is a decadent chocolate and almond biscotti…heavenly to say the least.(taken from from Williams-Sonoma Kitchen Library Series – Cookies & Biscotti)

125 grams semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

1 cup (215 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar

250 grams cups all-purpose flour

30 grams unsweetened cocoa, preferably Dutch-processed

1 tablespoon instant espresso powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 large eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanillaextract

1 cup hazelnuts toasted and coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).  To toast hazelnuts: spread on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes or until lightly browned and the skins begin to flake.  Remove from the oven and place nuts in a dish towel.   Roll up the towel and let the nuts ’steam’ for 5 minutes and then briskly rub the towel (with nuts inside) to remove the skins from the nuts.  Cool and then chop coarsely.   Set aside while you prepare the dough.

Reduce temperature of oven to 150 degrees C. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a food processor fitted with a metal blade, combine the coarsely chopped chocolate and brown sugar and process until the chocolate is very fine; set aside.

Sift or whisk together the flour, cocoa, espresso powder, baking soda and salt into a bowl; set aside. In the bowl of your electric mixer combine the eggs and vanilla extract and beat to blend, about 30 seconds.  On low speed mix in the chocolate/sugar and flour mixtures until a stiff dough forms, adding the hazelnuts about half way through mixing.

On a floured surface divide the dough in half. Form each half into a log 12 inches (30 cm) long.  Do this by rolling the dough back and forth into a cylinder shape with floured hands. Transfer the logs to the baking sheet, spacing them well apart (width-wise on the pan), and pat to even the shapes. Bake until almost firm to the touch, about 35 – 40 minutes (logs will spread during baking). Remove from the oven, place on wire rack, and let cool for 10 minutes.

Using a long spatula transfer the logs to a cutting board. Using a serrated knife cut the dough into slices 3/4 inch (2 cm) thick on the diagonal. Arrange the slices cut-side down on the baking sheet. Bake 15 minutes. Turn the slices over and bake until crisp and dry, about 15 minutes longer. Remove from oven and let cool on wire rack.

These are wonderful with a white chocolate glaze: Melt 90 grams of chopped white chocolate in a small metal bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water. Watch carefully as white chocolate can burn easily. Stir to melt. Dip one end of the biscotti into the chocolate and let it dry, on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Store in an airtight container for several weeks.

Makes about 30 biscotti

An old time favourite is a really good melt in the mouth shortbread.

Ingredients

500ml (2 cups) cake flour
60ml (4 Tablespoons) White Sugar
45ml (3 Tablespoons) corn flour
Pinch of salt
250g butter (soft, but not melted)
Extra White Sugar for sprinkling

Method

1. Place all the ingredients in a food processor and process till combined into a ball. Do not over- process. If you don’t have a food processor, work the mixture with your hands till combined.
2. Press the mixture into an oblong tray (or two 20cm round pie dishes). With the prongs of a fork, prick the mixture well. Bake at 160ºC till just starting to turn golden (35 – 40 minutes).
3. Remove from the oven and immediately slice into serving portions. Sprinkle with extra sugar while hot.

HINT:

• It is important that the butter is soft, though not melted. For best results use butter not margarine.

Grandma’s Crispy Biscuits with awesome variations not only keeps the kids happy but keeps dad quiet too…how could you resist?
Ingredients

250g butter or brick margarine
250ml (1 cup)  White Sugar
2 eggs, beaten
5ml (1 teaspoon) vanilla essence
4 x 250ml (4 cups) flour
10ml (2 teaspoons) baking powder
5ml (1 teaspoon) salt
25ml (5 teaspoons) water

Method

1. Cream butter and sugar.
2. Add vanilla essence and the eggs.
3. Sift the dry ingredients together. Add to the creamed mixture and mix thoroughly. Add a little water if necessary.
4. Roll out to a thickness of 3mm and cut out into different shapes.
5. Place on a greased baking sheet. Bake at 200ºC for about 8 minutes.

VARIATIONS:

• Sift 10ml of ground cinnamon, 10ml ground ginger and 3ml nutmeg with dry ingredients to make them spicy.
• Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar before baking.
• To make orange biscuits, omit the vanilla essence and one egg. Add 5ml grated orange rind and use orange juice instead of water. Cover the baked biscuits with orange glacé icing and sprinkle with toasted coconut.
• Decorate with either red, green or yellow quartered glacé cherries dipped in golden syrup.
• Dip half of each biscuit in melted chocolate.
• To make almond biscuits: Use a 40mm cookie cutter. Bake half the biscuits and cut 15mm holes in the centre of the remaining biscuits. Brush the top of these rings with egg and press on some chopped or slivered almonds. Bake like plain biscuits. Spread a thin layer of smooth apricot jam over each “whole” biscuit, and push an almond ring on top so that the jam oozes through the hole.

Fondant fancies  
Taking the design world by storm is intelligent creator and biscuit enthusiast  Robert Archard. His deliciously popular ceramic biscuits can now be found at Paperchase, Beyond the Valley, and currently at the Super Somerset House Christmas Market. I visited this weekend and left with a handful of naughty delights from Robert Archard’s stall.

A sweet tooth

Robert’s popular designs come in a range of confectionary classics – my favourites are the custard creams, pink wafers and bakewell tarts. Oh what the hell, let’s go crazy. I love them all. I’ve never been one to say no to sweet things. The adorable and exquisitely crafted hinged biscuits make perfect gifts. They serve as ideal little pill boxes, jewellery boxes or if you’re really cruel you could even lay them out on a tempting cake plate to trick a sweet-toothed grandma into thinking they’re edible! If you act fast you might be able to get your hands on a limited edition gold custard cream out just in time for Christmas.

To place an order visit Robert Archard’s website.
The Somerset House Super Christmas Market runs until 8pm on 22nd December. Entry is £2.00 which also grants you access to the SHOWstudio: Fashion Revolution exhibition.

When I saw Molly Wizenberg’s article on sweet potato biscuits in December’s Bon Appetit, I immediately ripped out the recipe with the hopes of baking a batch soon.  Several weeks later, I finally got around to it and my only regret is that I waited so long.  Slightly denser than a regular biscuit, these sweet potato biscuits are mighty fine and perfect for the holidays (at least what’s left of them!).

The recipe in  Bon Appetit was for small, bite-size biscuits, but frankly small biscuits depress me so I went big.  I like biscuits that require savoring that you can’t gulp down in one quick bite.  That being said, a petite version of these biscuits with a little ham would be a smashing hit at a cocktail party.  If you go that route, just be sure to make several batches.  They’ll go quickly!

Aside from super-sizing the biscuit, I adapted the recipe  by adding a little more sweet potato (1 lb instead of the 3/4 lbs the original recipe called for) and fresh thyme leaves.  I also substituted the buttermilk with whole milk as it was what I had on hand.  The result is biscuit nirvana.  Slightly sweet, buttery, and tender these biscuits are hard to stop eating.  So we didn’t even try to resist and gluttonously ate them as an accompaniment to a roast chicken dinner, with butter at breakfast, and toasted the next day with a slice of ham!   If only I had made more.

Sweet Potato Biscuits
(Makes 7 large biscuits or 25 small biscuits)

Making biscuits is very similar to making your own pie crust.  You use the same technique to cut in the butter. 

1 lb sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon (packed) dark brown sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of cayenne pepper
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and chilled
1/3 cup whole milk
1 tablespoon or more thyme leaves

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Grease a pie plate or cake pan with butter.

Cook the sweet potato chunks in a medium saucepan in boiling salted water for about 10 minutes or until tender.  Drain the sweet potatoes and return them to the saucepan.  Mash the sweet potatoes with a potato masher or fork until very smooth and allow to cool.  It’s important to let the sweet potatoes cool before you add them to the flour mixture as warm sweet potatoes will melt the butter thereby inhibiting the biscuits’ ability to rise.  

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and cayenne pepper.  Using two forks or a pastry blender, cut in the butter until it is in pea-sized pieces.  Whisk the milk and mashed sweet potatoes together and gently stir into the flour mixture.  Using your hands, quickly knead together the dough until just combined and turn out on a well floured surface.  Shape dough into a 1-inch thick round.  For big biscuits, use a large round biscuit cutter (I used a four-inch cutter) to cut out the biscuits.  For small biscuits, use a 1 1/2 inch round biscuit cutter.  While it’s tempting to twist the cutter when cutting out biscuits, don’t do it as it will seal the edges of your biscuit and prevent proper rising.  

Place the cut out biscuits in the greased baking dish and bake for about 20 minutes.  Remove from the oven and, if you have great self-control, allow the biscuits to cool slightly before eating.  Enjoy!

Hope you had a joyful fourth Sunday of Advent! Christmas is almost there and it’s still white outside!

I got such a cute cookie/biscuit cutter from my Godmother: an elk! I just had to make gingerbread elks.

Very swedish

I also made some gingerbread rocking horses as Christmas tree decoration. This one’s for a friend and I decorated it with marzipan.

But what took me really long were two My Neighbor Totoro cookies that I made for a cookie baking contest.

The contest’s requirements were that the cookies should have any relation to Japan and be cute – Totoro was perfect. I love them. One, I’ll save for myself and one gets a friend. Keep your fingers crossed for me to win something!

Today, we decorated store-bought (Ikea, more precisely) gingerbread hearts and the other rocking horses with sugar icing for our Christmas tree. We buy the hearts because they stay dry longer, normal gingerbreads become soft and fall from the tree.

So this weekend was all gingerbread-y. Only four days until Christmas is there – are you as excited as I am?

With a huge batch of gingerbread biscuits in a jar, including several on the Christmas tree, I thought I would turn some into a summer dessert of gingerbread ice cream, particulalry since our pre Christmas week promises to be a warm one. You never can tell at this time of the year in New Zealand, it could be glorious and warm or it could be wet and windy, sometimes we have spent it basking in the sun, other times huddled up in doors. Never as cold as my family back in the UK experience, particularly this year with the fresh snow that promises them a white Christmas. It is 10 years since I have experienced a white December and I would give anything to build a snowman in the garden around Christmas time, I’m sure the novelty would wear thin though as the snow turn to slush under foot. If we want to experience snow we have to drive four hours to the Volcano, Mt Rhupehu, in the middle of the North Island for our winter sports.

For P Christmas is his busiest time of the year so we have never travelled back to my home for Christmas with the family, although they have been here and love the fact that we have a BBQ on Christmas Day!

Ingredients for the Gingerbread is here on previous post. I only used a quarter of the biscuit dough for the ice cream but it is well worth making the full batch of biscuits as they last a couple of weeks.

Ingredients for the ice cream

• 200ml of cream
• 200ml of milk
• 100g sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• 3 drops of vanilla extract or beans from one pod
• 1/ tsp ground ginger

Method

1. Place milk & cream in a pan over a  very low heat and bring to a simmer.
2. Whisk egg yolks and sugar in a bowl till combined.
3. Whisk hot milk & cream into yolk mixture.
4. Return to a clean saucepan over a very low heat and stir constantly with a wooden spoon to prevent mixture from ‘catching’ on base of pan.
5. Cook gently until the mixture thickens and coats the back of the spoon.
6. Add the vanilla and ginger.
7. Transfer to a bowl and allow the custard to chill in fridge completely before putting into ice cream maker.
8. Put mixture into prepared ice cream maker as per instructions for that appliance.
9. Break up the ginger biscuits to crumbs and small pieces (like cookies & cream ice cream).
10. Once the ice cream if finished its process add the biscuits crumbs and mix by hand.
11. Freeze until ready to serve.

So today, my third day of the challenge, is cookies again. I guess I really want to be able to make it right. Want to be good in anything, everything! Just my little ambition in this tiny world. So it was raining today, which the weather I love he most. Cuddle weather. And why not making biscuits with marshmallow filling. Feeling abit mushy, just like the melted marshmallow.

So this is what the biscuits looked like after it done. A really nice rich golden brown colour~ so yummy!

and after you put the marshmallow inside them~ looked so freaking good!!!!!

Verdict: What I don’t like from making cookies is when the dough were too mushy… which makes everything hard to roll them, to cut them, and so on. that’s why I added more flour into it until it was actually shapeable. In relation to the taste, I am not really happy with it. But Midori and Taro love it so much and kept on saying it was so good! hmmmm……

Recipe were based on the book called “Ready, Steady, Bake – cooking for kids and with kids” by Lucy Broadhurst. But as usual, I get all naughty and changed the recipes

Ingredients:

• 126g butter, softened
• 130g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 200g plain flour
• 125g self-raising flour
• 15 large marshmallows, cut them to half (so you will get 30 marshmallow)

How to make:

1. preheat the oven to 160 degree C.
2. beat the butter and caster sugar until creamy.
3. add the egg and vanilla extract, beat well.
4. mix them with the plain flour and self-raising flour.
5. roll out to 5mm thick.
6. using cookie shaped cutter, cut out shapes.
7. bake for 10-13 minutes, or until lighty golden.
8. cool on the a wire rack.
9. Place the biscuits on a baking tray with a marshmallow on top of each one.
10. bake for 3-5 minutes.
11. sandwich with another biscuits.   

Happy trying guys

*Taro and Midori are on their way to Perth now~

xoxo,

Aby

One of my colleagues told me today about a serious custom linked to this time of year.

Towards Christmas, housewives across Germany battle it out to produce the most applaudable Weihnachts Plätzchen (Christmas biscuits).  They each exchange biscuits with other women and compare their own to everyone else’s.  Reputations are rapidly destroyed or founded over the festive season.

As you can imagine, the competition is intense.  Rivalry is savage.  Reviews can be deadly.

Although I’m nowhere near as established here in Germany yet to even consider taking part in all of this, I thought I’d make my own small contribution by looking into what Mrs Beeton has to offer, biscuit-wise.

I initially thought of making mince pies (OK they’re not biscuits, but they sure are festive – and unknown here in Germany).  But when I saw the amount of prior preparation involved (…“press the whole {mincemeat}into a jar, carefully exclude the air, and the mincemeat will be ready for use in a fortnight”), I opted for something decidedly more convenient.

Lemon Biscuits

Seed Biscuits

Savoy Biscuits

(See recipe links below)

When I was younger, my mother used to subtly hint that I couldn’t bake biscuits to save my life (Mother: ”You can’t bake biscuits to save your life”).  Although I can cook pretty much anything else, successful biscuits in those days often eluded me.  I like to think that I’ve improved over the years, but sometimes it’s still a close call.

Lemon Biscuits: This was the quickest recipe of the 3.  25 minutes passed between getting the mixing bowl out of the drawer and putting the baked biscuits on the cooling rack.  Light, slightly crispy and tasty.

Seed Biscuits: This was also pretty fast.  They have a slighty savoury taste, with the taste of the caraway seeds coming almost as a surprise when you bite into them.  The dough was stiff enough to allow me to use some cutesy animal-shaped biscuit cutters.  If you can’t go a little crazy at Christmas, when can you?

Savoy Biscuits: Or, Savoy Disaster more like.  Before even starting on them, I knew the process wasn’t going to be so easy.  A lot of whisking is required – an automatic whisker would save a lot of trouble, but I decided to do it manually as I had quartered the quantities – not enough for a machine to do.  That was my second mistake (the first was attempting the recipe to begin with, given my track record).  Whisking the mix to a stiff, light froth is key – and I stunningly failed to do, as my arm got tired after 15 minutes of beating and I began to give up.  I then decided to cheat and put the mix (slop) into a small baking dish, as it was too runny to separate into individual biscuits.  I’ll cut it up later, I thought.  Only when it was in the oven did I realise my 3rd mistake – I hadn’t put the flour into the mix.  At that point I completely gave up and switched off the oven.

Sitting here now with some tea and biscuits, I have to say that I’m really quite happy with the first two recipes.  But as for the third – perhaps my mother was right.

Lemon Biscuit. Seed Biscuit and Savoy Biscuit Recipes: http://www.mrsbeeton.com/35-chapter35.html#1745 (Numbers 1743, 1749 and 1748 respectively)

A very good friend bought me TWO KILOS of Organic All Purpose Spelt Flour because it was in the clearance for 50% off and I had no skrilla. Shame. Good thing my friends love my baking so much they voluntairily buy me discounted flour. Mmhmm.

This is most of the goods I made with it as of late:

Pancake Breakfast with S'nog!

“Perfect Pancakes” simple and sweet with a side of Maple Syrup and some S’nogged coffee!

CHEEZE BISCUITZ

Dad’s secret no-fail basic biscuit recipe with added cheddar Daiya. Oh, the Daiya is alllll through the inside, too. You know it. Life is good.

Blueberry Pancakes

Wild, organic, nutritious, delicious, Nova Scotian blueberries!

Bakery Style CCC's

I made these for my best friend Sammy when she was having a bad day. She’s a slut for my CCC’s.

Next- DAIYA.

xo.

TFish

Or a couple of hundred of them.
Greetings fellow Webloggers. Yes, I have finally got round to starting a Weblog (or ‘Blog’ as I believe it is referred to by those too lazy to utter the extra syllable!) and unleashing my Tuppence-worth on an unsuspecting (and I suspect, largely uninterested) world. At this point I feel I ought to apologise to Jamie Lamb for nicking forcefully borrowing some of his side-panel arrangements from his Blog. But you know what they say… ‘Plagiarism is the best form of flattery’.
So, welcome one and all to my contribution to the Blogosphere (another annoyingly pointless phrase I hate along with, ‘SuBo’, ‘Strictly’ [Come Dancing], ‘celeb’ and certain elements of the media tacking the word ‘gate’ onto the end of any scandal that blows up eg. Sachsgate, Nipplegate, Stupidgate or Gatesgate, Climategate, Bloodgate …you get the idea!).
…Ahem! So pull up a chair, choose your favourite biccy from the jar (BISCUIT-GATE! …Sorry) and if you’re sitting comfortably I’ll begin.

Here’s the latest television commercial for Midstate Mills and TendaBake:

I made the sushi bowls again tonight, but this time they’re on a plate and I added sweet potato and steamed broccoli. The results? Deliciousness!

I’m working on a cookie recipe I hope to post sometime next week. I made a test batch last night, and while they were pretty tasty, they had issues. I have a few ideas to fix them, so I’ll make another batch next week (my waistline can’t afford to have cookies in the house every night, not even low-fat vegan ones).

I’ve been trying to decide what all I’m going to make for Christmas. I know I’ll be making a few cookie tins for gifts, and I know for sure I’m making Happy Herbivore’s Soy-Free Mac ‘n Cheese, vegan sausage balls, and biscuits and maybe a pumpkin pie, but beyond that, I’m clueless.

Speaking of biscuits, here’s a quick and easy recipe for vegan biscuits made with Heart Smart Bisquick, modified from the recipe on the back of the box. I made them for dinner last night, and I was shocked by how good they were. They’d make a tasty breakfast sandwich with some tofu scramble and soy cheese (or fake bacon and soy cheese). We had them with tomato soup.

Vegan Bisquick Biscuits

1-1/2 cups Heart Smart Bisquick
1/2 cup unsweetened plain almond milk

Preheat oven to 450F. Mix Bisquick and milk together in a bowl. Transfer to a kneading surface sprinkled with Bisquick and knead 10 times. Roll out dough to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut into circles with a biscuit cutter (or the open end of a glass). Bake on a lightly oiled (or parchment-lined) baking sheet for 7-9 minutes.

What meat-free wonders are you cooking up for the holidays?

Submitted by Gloria Wilding
Serves: 6-8
Prep/cooking time: 50 min

Ingredients:

• 200g plain flour
• Pinch of salt
• 125g soft butter
• 75g caster sugar
• Filling
• 50g dried apricots
• 50g dried cranberries
• 50g chopped pecans
• 1 tbsp apricot jam
• 2 tbsp dark rum
• Marzipan
• 100g ground almonds
• 1 egg yolk
• 25g castor sugar

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C and grease a sheet tin.
2. Put the flour, salt and sugar in a bowl, rub in the butter and mix together. Roll out into circles. Lay on the greased tin and brush with beaten egg.
3. Mix all marzipan ingredients together, roll out into circles and place on top of the shortbread dough circles.
4. Mix the filling ingredients in a bowl and spread over the marzipan and shortbread circles.
5. Dampen the edges and then lay another shortbread dough circle on top. Crimp the edges and sprinkle with caster sugar.
6. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.