While waging the eternal fight over one’s BMI, it’s always good to have a stock of ‘forbidden fruit’ squirrelled away for those weak moments. While these delights won’t help with the weight loss they will make you feel great when your resolve crumbles, you find you’re only human and you need a little reward for surviving the crazy world around you.
Biscuits are all about reward. Our mother, bless her memory, played a nasty on us for a short time during our early childhood, until we wised up. On the kitchen counter she would keep a large jar of thin raisin filled biscuits, which she called ‘fly cemeteries’, revealing her Scottish roots.
Now when the jar started to empty she would encourage us to hunt and gather. If we wanted her to bake another batch we would have to fill a large jar with dead flies to provide the essential tasty filling.
Of course, we set about our task with relish, quickly swatting the house clean of flies and presenting our loving mother with a jar partly filled with dead flies.
Home from school the next day the biscuit jar was full again. Mum of course would just pop up to the Dairy in Grafton and buy another packet of biscuits off the shelf. Reward: kids, dogs, lab rats, it works on us all.
Ginger and Almond Thins
Ingredients to make about 100 delicious biscuits
- Butter x 250 gram
- Brown sugar (not demerara) x 250 gram
- Honey x 140 gram
- All purpose flour x 500 gram
- Cinnamon x 10 gram
- Baking powder x 14 gram
- Sliced white almonds x 150 gram
- Crystallised ginger x 100 gram
Method
Into a mixer add the sugar, butter and honey. Using a paddle attachment, mix until combined. While the butter mass is mixing combine the flour, cinnamon and baking powder in another bowl, then add that to the butter mass in the mixer bowl. Keep mixing until the mixture becomes quite coarse and starts combining, then add the almonds and ginger. Let this mix a bit. Warning: it’s a very dry mix and won’t combine completely by itself.
Stop the mixer. Using your own elbow grease and strong hands divide the mix into two and press with all your strength, evenly packing the mixture into two English cake forms. I pack it down and get it level using a metal spatula. Wrap in cling wrap and freeze overnight or until you want to make the biscuits.
The next day, or whenever desired, remove the frozen biscuit and let sit for 15-25 minutes to thaw a little. On a stable cutting board cut slices as thin as you can. I try for no thicker than 2 mm. Place immediately using the knife onto baking paper covered oven trays. They don’t expand much so they can be placed reasonably close together.
Put into a preheated 180°C oven (170°C on fan) for ten minutes only. Leave to cool, turn on the kettle and brew yourself a nice cuppa so you can enjoy the fruits of your labour. Crisp, sweet, hot (spicy) caramelised all in one bite. Careful: once you start you can’t stop eating these.
Shalom from a very chilly Jerusalem, worst winter in memory. Must be Global Warming !!
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