Almond Butter Biscuits

Like many things I bake, this recipe was inspired by an ingredient that I bought to try in something else that I never got round to making. In this case, the ingredient was ground almonds and the never-made bake was a chocolate torte. I spent most of last week craving homemade biscuits (or cookies, depending on which side of the Atlantic you’re on!) – a craving probably fuelled by a tiredness-induced sugar desire during a week of Baby S being unwell (which I temporarily abated on a daily basis with chocolate and nice, healthy fruit). Over the weekend, I finally had the chance to bake whilst J and Baby S had some Dad-baby time. The idea for these biscuits had been in my mind for a day or two before then and, much to my delight, they turned out pretty close to my mental image/taste. This recipe makes about 36 biscuits. The cup measurements below are based on a 250 ml mug as equal to one cup. If you want to, you could ramp up the almond taste by adding some almond extract to the mixture – if you do this (which I’ve not tried), it is probably best to add it when you add the egg.

What you’ll need:

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour

Pinch salt

1 1/2 cups ground almonds

What to do:

1. Cream together the butter and sugar, then add the egg to the bowl and beat into the butter/sugar mixture.

2. Sift the flour and salt into the bowl, add the ground almonds and then fold the flour, salt and almonds into the butter/sugar/egg mixture until thoroughly mixed together.

3. Roll the dough into one or two long cylinders with a diameter of about 5 cm, then wrap the cylinders in cling film and leave in the fridge for at least an hour to become firm.

4. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4 (180º C or 350º F) and then remove the dough from the fridge.

5. Slice the cylinder(s) of dough into rounds that are about a centimetre in width.

6. Place the biscuit rounds on a couple of baking trays that have either been lined with greaseproof paper or greased and then bake in the middle of the pre-heated oven for about 10 minutes, or until golden brown. You will need to leave a little bit of space between each biscuit, but not much (at least 1 to 2 cm) as they hold their shape pretty well in the oven.

7. Once baked, remove the baking trays from the oven and place the biscuits onto a cooling rack to cool before eating. These will keep for at least a few days in an airtight tin.

Peanut Butter Cookies

There was one main recipe book used in our household as I was growing up – an edition of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook which, if I remember correctly was given to my Mum as a wedding present and which I eagerly accepted when she offered it to me – now tattered and stained with evidence of much use – a couple of years ago. That cookbook, along with my Mum’s never-fail, go-to sponge recipe, introduced me to a love of measuring ingredients by volume, in cups, rather than by weight – a love that has been unfailing for my lazy self, despite the fact that weight measurements are more accurate and yield more consistent results. In the pages of that Fannie Farmer Cookbook are three biscuit recipes which I would say were the defining biscuits of my childhood – recipes for Sugar Cookies and Rich Cookies, which I and my siblings made regularly right from when we could measure ingredients by ourselves and be trusted to man the oven alone, and a recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies, which my Mum made frequently. This recipe is an adaption of Peanut Butter Cookie recipe (the original recipe is on page 437 of the 1965 edition of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, if you’re interested). The cup measurements below are all based on a 250 ml mug equalling one cup, and, depending on the size of your cookies, this makes about 20 to 25 cookies.

What you’ll need:

1/3 cup butter or margarine (use butter for richer cookies)

1/2 cup peanut butter (I used crunchy peanut butter for these but either crunchy or smooth will work)

2/3 cup light brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg

1 cup self-raising flour

Pinch salt

What to do:

1. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4 (180º C or 350º F).

2. Cream together the butter or margarine, peanut butter and sugar in a mixing bowl.

3. Beat the egg and vanilla extract, into the butter/peanut butter and sugar mixture.

4. Sift the flour and salt into the mixing bowl and then fold  the flour and salt into the butter/peanut butter/sugar/egg mixture.

5. Place teaspoonfuls of the mixture on a greased or lined baking tray, about an inch apart and then flatten each spoonful with the back of a floured fork.

6. Bake the cookies in the middle of the pre-heated oven for 10 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and place each cookies on a cooling rack to cool before eating (sorry – I have no photos of this final bit as J whisked away the camera to take photos of baby S before I had a chance to stop him…).

Honey and Almond Biscuits

Last year I tried my hand for the first time at a nearly flourless chocolate cake, which incorporated a healthy abundance of ground almonds. The cake itself was good, but, I felt, needed tweaking and refining before it would be blog-worthy. So I bought various ingredients intending to try my hand at it again but somehow never got round to it. Various other uses for the unopened bag of ground almonds bought for attempt number two at the cake flitted across my mind but it wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that I finally tried making something with the ground almonds – a something which was nothing like the chocolatey, sugar-laden visions that had filled my ground almond day dreams. These honey and almond biscuits were a bit of an experiment, which actually turned out pretty tasty…and with the psychological bonus that they must be better for me than other biscuits as they are sweetened with honey rather than sugar (at least that was my rather unconvincing rationale as I reached for a fourth second one). These biscuits are quite chewy in the middle and will last for a few days in an airtight tin. This recipe makes about 20 biscuits. The cup measurements are based on a 250 ml mug as equivalent to one full cup.

What you’ll need:

1/2 cup self-raising flour

2 cups ground almonds

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/3 cup honey

1 egg

What to do:

1. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4 (180º C or 350º F) and either grease a baking sheet or line it with greaseproof paper.

2. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl (imagine the photo for this stage…), add the almonds and cinnamon to the bowl and mix together thoroughly with a wooden spoon or spatula.

3. Add the honey to the flour, almonds and cinnamon and mix together with a wooden spoon or spatula until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. You may find it easier to deal with the sticky honey if you fill the mug with boiling water, leave it for a minute or so and then empty it of the water (thereby heating the mug) before measuring the honey – the heat will help it to slide out of the mug and into the bowl more easily.

4. Add the egg to the honey/flour/almond/cinnamon mixture and mix together thoroughly until the mixture comes together into a dough.

5. Scoop out teaspoonfuls of the dough, shape into balls (this can be a sticky process) and then place each ball about an inch apart on the prepared baking tray.

6. Dip a fork in a little bit of extra flour and then press the fork into one of the balls to flatten it slightly. Repeat for every ball of dough, dipping the fork into the flour each time, to prevent the dough sticking to the fork.

7. Bake in the middle of the pre-heated oven for about 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and leave to cool before eating.

Crispy Chocolate Chunk Cookies

These cookies were inspired by the cereal bars that have called my name every lunchtime for the last couple of weeks. They weren’t just any cereal bars, but the type that cuts through the health claims of cereal bars in general with a thick chocolate or yogurt coating that makes all the difference to my eating pleasure – the type that is really a chocolate bar with ‘cereal’ in the title and a handful of nuts and dried fruit thrown in to appease guilty health consciences. These cookies certainly do not tick the ‘healthy’ box but I’d like to hope that they do tick a ‘happy’ box. I was certainly happy when they turned out very close in reality to the way I’d imagined them when the idea was conceived. This makes about 14 cookies (or more, depending on how much raw batter, which I actually prefer to the baked version, you eat). All the cup measurements below are based on a 250 ml mug as equal to one cup.

What you’ll need:

1/2 cup butter

1 cup light brown sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla essence

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour

Pinch salt

1 cup crisped rice

100 grams milk chocolate

What to do:

1. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4 (180ºC or 350ºF).

2. Cream together the butter and sugar.

3. Add the eggs and vanilla essence to the butter and sugar and beat together well with an electric beater.

4. Sift the flour and salt into the bowl and fold into the butter/sugar/egg mixture (please imagine a photo with all of the flour incorporated into the mixture – I appear to have forgotten to take one…).

5. Roughly chop the chocolate.

6. Add the chopped chocolate and crisped rice to the bowl and fold into the flour/butter/sugar/egg mixture until the chocolate and crisped rice are well-distributed throughout the mixture.

7. Place dessertspoonfuls of the mixture on a greased tray, at least 1 inch apart and flatten (or rather smush down) with the back of a fork.

8. Bake the cookies in the middle of the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes or until they are a golden brown colour.

9. Remove the cookies from the oven and either cool on a cooling rack or (my preferred option) eat straight away whilst warm and filled with pockets of melty chocolate.