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.
