Addison Embroidery
at the
Vicarage

As it’s still jolly cold in our churches, I chose a juicy and spicy biscuit with a thick chocolate topping – surprisingly few people have give up chocolate for Lent, so I had a clean plate in no time. Stem ginger in syrup gives a good warm tang while both the ginger and the cherries make the biscuit nice and chewy.

Chocolate ginger and cherry biscuits

120 g SR flour

2 teasp ground ginger

1/2 teasp mixed spice

30 g pale muscovado sugar

about 30 g drained & chopped stem ginger (or crystallised ginger)

30 g glacé cherries

50 g butter

50 g Golden Syrup

85 g good quality dark chocolate

Makes about 20

Chocolate ginger and cherry biscuits

Heat oven to 200°C/ 180°C for a fan oven/Gas Mark 6

Lightly grease a couple of baking sheets.

Sift the flour, spices and sugar into a large bowl and mix in the chopped ginger and cherries.

Melt butter and Golden Syrup in a saucepan (taking care that it doesn’t boil) and then stir this into the spices flour, plunging your hands in as the mixture comes together (you may need a little extra flour at this point).

Pinch off walnut sized pieces of dough, roll into a ball, place on the baking sheet and flatten slightly. Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown, slightly cracked on top but still soft. Leave on baking sheet for a few minutes and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Put the chocolate in a bowl over just boiled water with the heat turned right down. When melted put a blob of chocolate on each biscuit, dribble in zig zags across or be more randomly creative as in the picture which accompanied the original recipe below.

For me the gold leaf is a step too far although it does look very pretty. (The magazine recipe suggest you buy gold leaf from here.) I had forgotten to make a note of details of which magazine on the cutting, so I can’t give anyone the credit. The addition of cherries was my idea – on a whim as they were stored next to the ginger. The plate used in the picture is wonderful –  the biscuits look stunning  too!

Chocolate ginger biscuits with gold leaf

Third embellished patchwork star (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Not a breath of wind in the Chilterns today and all is very quiet. The deep stillness aids vision and twigs, grasses and the few plants to have appeared stand out as clear as in a Pre-Raphaelite painting. The sky is empty – not enough currents to bring the kites out, the roads are almost devoid of cars and there are no figures out for a walk along the Quickset – a little pocket of time that could almost be the 1950s.

Embellished patchwork star : detail (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

But slicing through the reverie, we are looking forward to the new Saturday evening double episode crime drama on BBC 4 (a European production with subtitles). How peculiar that vicarage life in this gentle village involves such regular viewing. The Reverend Septimus Harding would shake his victorian head in sad disbelief at the way a C21st clergyman finds relaxation.