The 2nd recipe that I chose to do from our book for this month ( The Primrose Bakery Book) was 'Melting Moments'. Looking at the picture and the ingredients it promised to be a simple enough biscuit recipe and reminded me of my early cookery lessons at boarding school: nothing like a little nostalgia!
So I came back from a day out determined to make them last Tuesday night. I knew I had all the ingredients. For the biscuits these were:
- unsalted butter
- icing sugar
- plain flour
- cornflour
- baking powder
(Actually - I forgot to check on the flour because we always have so much and so many varieties so used self raising flour. I did choose to also use the baking powder, but used half the quantity)
So once everything was measured out, within reach and sifted I got started. The first thing the book tells you to do is to sift ALL the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix well with the butter using an electric hand mixer. A part of me wondered about the frivolity of this and how every time I used that technique I end up with a breadcrumb mixture... But part of the reason for doing the blog is to follow the recipes 'as they are'! So I did and yes, I ended up with a breadcrumb mixture and NOT biscuit dough! Another by product of mixing butter and dry ingredients in this way is that you get a fine dust on everything (although I have a technique that stops this and keeps everything in the bowl. :-) so be warned!
The next step is supposed to be rolling handfuls of the mixture into balls that you then flatten into your biscuit shape(s) on a tray. Except that.... breadcrumbs don't hold together like dough does - funny that! My solution was to add a couple of tablespoons of liquid (milk) to help it to bind and hold together and then got on with it. At this point, I was a little less than unimpressed (to put it mildly) as I had also not been very successful in my dust-reduction method, either. I finally got the biscuits into the oven and decided that the best way to better my mood would be to stand in front of the oven and scowl at the biscuits for the entire time they were in the oven (9 minutes)! Not recommended - but great fun for friends either watching / hearing about it later!
(The bake...)
Despite my mood I was really impressed by the way that they expanded in size (and wished I had spread them out a little more on the tray) and the results weren't too bad.
(These were a little too golden and misshapen but I was really unimpressed still and so decided these would just 'have to be the ones'. The end results shows a better reflection of the actual result!)
The icing ingredients:
- custard powder
- unsalted butter
- icing sugar
- water
Not my favourite type of icing as I think we could be more decadent on this front - but that is what the recipe says...)
It was all pretty straightforward and the icing was smooth and easy to spread.
(I was a little heavy handed and uncaring on the icing - shameful!)
All things considered and the biscuits sandwiched together, all was well. E had people come round that evening and they were welcomed with the offer of home-baked goods with tea/coffee. They seemed delighted by the offer and there were a lot less on the plate afterwards than what I expected to see! The compliments poured out all round and this made me feel better about them all. So - I would definitely say give them a go at home. The only thing that I would change is I would say to cream the bitter and the sugar and then add the rest of the dry ingredients - you can still get lots of air in them and keep them light as they ought to be.
At the end - a great little biscuit that goes far... they are incredibly large and incredibly sweet so one is more than ample with a nice rich cup of coffee. Well worth the grump and well worth putting the effort in. Recommended but I would make the modifications that I mentioned above.
Two more recipes from me this month, then onto the next cookbook.
