Lemon crinkle biscuits with marzipan surprise
Italian lessons on a Monday morning have turned out to be great fun and because our brilliant teacher wields the hand of a circus master exceedingly firmly over our attempts to break free into flights of fancy and idle chatter, we do seem to be learning some Italian. Homework topics are inspired. Quite often someone brings cake or biscuits, so one week we were set to describe a biscuit named after a place or person (Garibaldi, Bath Olivers of course but who knew the Marie biscuit was dreamed up by Peek Freans in 1874 in honour of the marriage of the Grand Duchess Alexandrovna of Russia to the Duke of Edinburgh. A rather bland biscuit to our tastes now, it took Europe by storm and was especially popular during the Spanish Civil War when it became a national treasure and symbol of the country’s turn of fortunes as bakeries converted the vast quantities of surplus wheat into Marie biscuits? Extraordinary!)
Tip of the week, another homework topic, included suggestions to use Easy Slide pads under kitchen appliances for fingertip moving, lots of vinegar and baking powder for cleaning and using a Lakeland wash ball instead of washing powder or liquid in your washing machine. In true show and tell mode, products were brought in and handed round. All explained in Italian – of course.
There we are eight women of a certain age and even in Italian we’re talking about cooking and cleaning. Oh dear! Just to be quite clear, our teacher is MUCH younger and we do have the occasional man – that is a man comes occasionally when not having to care for his ill wife. But it has to be said that our solitary man does tend to slew the conversation round to sport at every opportunity. Please try not to let the phrase “sexual stereotyping” pop into your head.
Madeleines with raspberry centre
Anyway last night we did something special and the vicarage opened its door to our Italian class for a viewing of Pane e Tulipani a charming Italian comedy with the most wonderful dialogue (even via subtitles). We all feel there will be many occasions when we launch into quoting Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso or mildly announce in slightly quaint language that “… the last few hours have been abundant in agitation…” .
Earlier in the day the village had provided tea for theological students from Cuddesdon Theological College as they toured our team of parishes and discovered all was not dead in the heart of rural England. So it was lemon biscuits and madeleines today which is excellent as it puts me a bit nearer to making that 100th church biscuit before we leave. And by the way, both were very good and will definitely be made again.
Lemon crinkle biscuits with marzipan surprise
LEMON CRINKLE BISCUITS WITH MARZIPAN
110 g butter softened
200 g golden caster sugar
1 large egg
200g Self Raising Flour
2 lemons, zest of
1 tbsp lemon juice
100g icing sugar (for rolling biscuits in before cooking)
c. 50 g marzipan
Preheat oven to 180° C/ 160° C fan/ 350° F/ Gas Mark 4
Makes about 25 decent sized biscuits.
Lemon crinkle biscuits with marzipan surprise
Grease 2 baking trays with none stick cooking liquid likeLakeland Cake Release (or line with baking paper).
Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add egg, lemon zest and juice and mix well. Stir in sieved flour. Bring together dough into a ball.
Pour icing sugar into a soup plate. Cut marzipan in 25 pieces and roll these into a ball. Dip finger tips into icing sugar. Pinch off nutmeg sized pieces of dough, and press a little marzipan ball into it, smoothing the dough over the marzipan. Roll this ball in the icing sugar, place on a baking tray and flatten slightly. Repeat until all dough used up.
Bake for just under 10 minutes and take out when the edge is barely beginning to brown. Remove from oven and leave on tray for 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack with a spatula.
Madeleines with lime and raspberry centres
MADELEINES WITH LIME AND RASPBERRY CENTRES
3 eggs
130 g sugar
200 g Self Raising flour
finely grated zest of 2 limes
20 g honey
4 tbsp milk
200 g butter, melted and cooled
small punnet raspberries
Preheat the oven t 190 °C/ 170° C for a fan/ 375 °F/Gas Mark 5.
Grease a madeleine tray with non stick cooking liquid.
Beat the eggs with the sugar until pale and frothy. Mix the honey with milk and cooled butter, then add to the eggs. Gradually fold in the flour and lime zest.
Cover and leave to rest in the fridge for a few hours.
Put a tablespoon of batter into each madeleine shell and press a raspberry deep into the batter.
Bake for 5 minutes and turn the oven off for 1 minute, then turn the oven on to 160°C/ 140°C/325°F/ Gas Mark 3 and bake for a further 5 minutes. Leave for a few minutes and transfer madeleines to a wire rack. Wash and dry the tin and repeat baking as for the first batch.
Madeleines with lime and raspberry centres
This is a Rachel Khoo recipe and at this stage she pipes some home made lemon (or could be lime) curd into the cooked madeleine which she then dusts with icing sugar. I had no lemon or lime curd and certainly didn’t have time to make some but it does sound rather delicious and will be worth trying out.
12 Comments
Very enjoyable post with numerous strands to go off and explore,as ever. Please reassure me that you will continue the blog after your move AND that there will still be recipes!
I do hope to continue the blog but embroidery will take longer. I will probably do more hand patchwork and hand quilting which I did when my own children were little.
As I will be in charge of meals for a busy family with odd hours, I thought I might blog weekly meals that work for our far from unusual set up. I want to make good meals that my husband and I can eat with the grandson at 5pm but which can also be microwaved at 10pm for my son-in-law’s dinner and then even later for my daughter. I’m getting excited about using more vegetables and making dishes with things like celeriac or cauliflower mash rather than potatoes. I hope this might interest people.
Although I don’t want to I think I shall have to stop blogging for a couple of months in late summer while we move and sort ourselves out.
Thank you for being encouraging, Linda.
They do sound delicious – and my word, I wish I were in your Italian class!
Yes, it is a great class, Rachel. It too will, however, stop soon as our teacher is moving to devote more time to her business selling Merino wool clothes. Much sadness all round as she’s such an inspired teacher.
Oh do keep writing. Your blog posts are always a great pleasure to read and how will the office cope without your biscuit recipes?
Oh dear Jane, I’m not sure I have more than 100 biscuits in me – and I shall be very happy if I actually get to 100.
But thanks for letting me know that you have enjoyed the posts and the recipes – your comments are greatly appreciated.
Mary I am going to make a suggestion that will ensure you some hours of ‘abundant agitation’ (what a wonderful phrase), should you take it up, which is that you produce a small book(let) of your 100 church biscuit recipes and sell copies as a parting gift to raise funds for your church/chosen charity. I would buy one, as I am sure your other readers would, and in your community there must be those who would also love your collection of tried and tested biscuit recipes. You have the photographs, and you have already typed up all the recipes. I am picturing one of those spiral bound booklets that worthy branches of the WRI sometimes produce, full of homely recipes, you will know exactly what I mean. X
Yes, I think I might do something like that but at the moment I’m either eyebrow deep in cardboard boxes or smothered in patchwork stars for the altar frontal. Thank you for giving me an enthusiastic push.
Do you think it should be a warts all and all set of recipes – that is the ones that didn’t work or were just badly made? And do you think they should include the other bits of the blog posts about weather, passing bits of nature and people? I’m now getting quite excited … pity packing calls – a vanful of 2 daughter’s possessions is due to take things north on Saturday morning, so no slacking.
Hmm. I think it would depend on the emphasis of the book. If it is essentially a memoir (and I like this idea!) with the biscuit recipes as a running theme, then I would probably encourage you to include those that were less than successful. If it is more of a biscuit recipe book, albeit with with observation and comment, then perhaps leave out those that you felt didn’t work. I can’t think how I could help, but if I can, please feel free to ask! (Having encouraged you to do it I feel the least I can do is a bit of recipe testing or sub editing!). Hope the packing is going well, it is a mammoth task. X
Your thoughts are very helpful, Penny and have joined my own sloshing around as an undercurrent in the back of my head while I get on with other things – which I find is often the best way when you want something constructive to emerge. Whatever happens, many thanks for your encouragement and continuous support.
Keep thinking Mary and I am sure the best format for you will arrive. I do like the idea of a memoir with recipes and like Penny am ready to roll up my sleeves and assist if I can. i am wondering if I have any recipes to send to you, but I think you may have out-biscuited us all!
Thank you for such a helpful comment.
I would love to hear your favourite biscuit recipes as I wonder whether The Church Biscuit ever make it all the way through the 90s.