What to do when you’ve not got quite enough plain flour in the cupboard, need to make biscuits and can’t be arsed to walk to the shop? Use up what you’ve got in the cupboard and improvise!
These are based on a staple biscuit mix I wrote up many years ago, which I use as a basis to tweak and change for new flavours and biscuit types. This has the added extra of some dried coconut milk powder, which I always keep in the cupboard for Thai curries and is a great flour replacement. It’s easier than you think to get hold of a packet of this stuff, mine’s by Maggi, as most UK supermarkets now have an international or specialist food aisle and there’s a good chance now that you’ll have an Asian supermarket in a town somewhere near. Alternatively, get some online.
As it happens, these turned out lovely and I’ve now made them half a dozen times or so!
Notes
Makes about 40
Equipment
- Bowls
- Cling film
- Baking trays lined with either a silicon mat or baking parchment
- Spoon and measuring spoons
- Sharp knife
Ingredients
- Caster sugar – 65g
- Icing sugar – 65g
- Unsalted butter, very soft but not melted – 160g
- Eggs, whole – 2
- Plain flour – 320g
- Dried coconut milk powder – 50g
- Baking powder – 2 teaspoons
- Hazelnuts – 40g
- Glacé cherries – 40g
Method
- Cream the butter and the sugars together
- Add in the eggs, flour, coconut milk powder and baking powder and mix until combined
- Separate the mix into half and put one half in another bowl
- Add the hazelnuts to one bowl and mix in until evenly distributed, be careful not to overwork the mix
- Add the cherries to the other bowl and again mix in, being careful not to work it too hard
- Peel off a large ‘sheet’ of cling film and put one half of the biscuit mix into the middle of the cling film and tease into a long sausage shape – it should be about 5-6cm in diameter (about 2″)
- Roll up in the cling film and then roll the biscuit mix up and down to smooth out the sausage shape
- Pat down the ends so that they are relatively flat, so that you have a nice cylinder
- Repeat for the other half of the mix and then put both in the freezer for 20 minutes, or the fridge for several hours if you plan to make them later (actually this can be stored in the fridge for a couple of days or a good month in the freezer if you’re good at preparing in advance!)
- Put the oven on to 170C fan, about 180C conventional
- Bring the biscuit cylinders out of the freezer or fridge and slice off 1cm (about 3/8″) disc
- They will spread a little so leave a gap between biscuits on the baking trays
- Bake for about 12 minutes
Ink Sugar Spice ~ Lynn Clark 