Easter spiced currant biscuits

After all that chocolate, I thought I would bake something fruity and traditional. What better than a lovely buttery currant biscuit, not too sweet, not too spicy.

Currant biscuits are a traditional English Easter treat, but  they are frankly great at any time of year. Biscuit baking is much more forgiving than cake baking and  is something I should do more of.

These bakes expand only slightly whilst baking and store well in an airtight tin, they would also make a fab gift in a pretty basket or box for any celebration.

What you need

• 300g plain flour (gluten free works ok, just watch the texture)
• 150g icing sugar
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 175g butter, cold and diced
• 1 egg - beaten and mixed with 1tbsp of water
• 125g currants
• 1 egg white
• caster sugar for sprinkling

Prepare a couple of baking trays - lightly brushed at oil

You will also need a 6cm ish cookie cutter

What you do

• In a food processor whizz the flour, icing sugar, spice and diced butter until the texture of fine breadcrumbs, a mixer or even by hand would work too
• Add the egg/water mixture to the processor and mix until it clumps.
• On a floured surface turn out the mixture, pull the mixture together and knead in the currants
• Wrap the dough in clingfilm and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes or so
• Pre heat the oven to 160c 
• Flour the worksurface again and roll out the chilled dough to approximately 4mm thick, cut out round and place on to the prepared trays, keep rolling out until all the dough is used up.
• Brush with the beaten egg white and sprinkle with a little caster sugar before baking for 10 - 15 minutes until lightly golden and sparkling.
• Remove carefully from the trays to a wire rack to cool fully.

Cooking with Herbs - September 2015

Its with great excitment that this month we are hosting this month's Cooking with Herbs, whilst the lovely Karen is away travelling in Canada (lucky lady), hopefully she has left it in safe hands whilst she is away

As the new series of Great British Bake Off for this year is well underway and as always the bakers are being ccreative with their flavour choices. I thought it would be fun to theme this months linky to baking, cooking with herbs in Breads, biscuits and cakes. Please join in the fun as I am looking forward to seeing all your lovely baking creations, as I know we have lots of talented bakers out there.

You find the roundup if last months linky here - the theme being Herbal Flowers

So if you fancy joining the baking fun just follow the instructions below

September Cooking with Herbs

Bread, Biscuits & Cakes

Guidelines how to enter:

1. Post your recipe url to the Linky at the bottom of the appropriate month’s challenge, including your email and the title of your recipe or post.

2. Display the Cooking with Herbs badge (as shown above and below) to the relevant recipe post, with a link back to the monthly challenge post.

3. Add as many recipe links as you like, there is NO limit!

4. If you tweet your post, please mention #cookingwithherbs and @KarenBurnsBooth in your tweet – I will retweet all that I see. If a guest blogger is hosting, please add them into the tweet too! So for this month please tweet @LancashireFood 

5. The recipe can be one of your own or one you’ve seen elsewhere. You are welcome to republish old recipes/posts but please add the information about this challenge as listed above with the Cooking with Herbs badge.

6. If using a recipe from another person, book, website, chef or blog, you must link back to the original recipe and not reproduce the recipe in full in your post. You must also use your OWN images for the recipe and not the original images, unless you have permission to do so, with appropriate links and any other information requested by the photo’s owner added to the image.

   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

Clarks New Honey - Honey monster biscuits

Clarks the Honey and Maple syrup people have just launched a new clear honey and I have been sent a jar to have some fun with. A blend of British honey with some blossom and acacia honey to keep it clear, this is a great honey for the store cupboard, personally I love the  bee on flower design on the label, the honey itself was great in this recipe for monster honey biscuits, monster as they are so huge.

Really tasty with a nice honey flavour these biscuits are sure to be popular with all the family and keep well in an airtight tin (not that they will last that long !). Clarks Honey has a lovely website as well with lots more serving ideas for this lovely versatile honey.

What you need

• 1/4 cup of honey 
• 1 egg - free range, beaten
• 2 1/4 cups of self raising flour - sieved
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 175g butter 
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla paste

What you do 

• Melt the butter, sugar and honey in a saucepan over a low heat, until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth.
• Remove from the heat and add the cinnamon, allow to cool.
• In a large bowl place the other ingredients and mix gently, now add the melted butter mixture and mix well until you have a stiff sticky mixture.
• Using a wet tablespoon scoop out the mixture an form balls. Place these on an oven tray, pressing down with a wet fork, remembering to allow space for the biscuits to spread.
• Bake in an oven at 180c until golden and firm to touch, normally about 12 -15 minutes.
• Allow to cool on the baking trays and store when cool in an airtight tin.

Ferrero biscuits

Italian inspired biscuits, apparently chocolate hazlenut spread known the world over as Nutella was invented in Italian by a gentleman named "Ferrero" , who later used this ingredient in the ambassadors favourite chocloate Ferrero Rocher. These little biscuits use chocolate hazelnut spread as their source of chocolatelyness, very easy to make and bake.They are also a perfect foil to a delicious creamy prosecco, ideally served with quality vanilla ice cream or the classic  wobbly delight of pannacotta.

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp chocolate hazelnut spread
• 50g caster sugar
• 3 tbsp soft brown sugar
• 50g softened butter
• 1 egg
• 100g of sieved self raising flour
• Orange rind, choc chips, raisins are all optional extras

Method

• Preheat your oven to 180c
• Mix all ingredients together throughly in one bowl
• Place dollops of your mixture on a ungreased baking tray
• Squish them slightly to flatten with a fork
• Bake for 15 - 25 minus until set but not coloured, cooking time depends on the size of your biscuits
• Cool on a wire rack
• Dust with icing sugar when cool or alternatively you could drizzle with chocolate