Addison Embroidery
at the
Vicarage

Lemon polenta crescents

Delicate lemon biscuits with the gritty addition of polenta and the soft nuttiness of ground almonds. They would have been even better half dipped in the most velvet of dark chocolate but it was fortunate I never got round to doing this as someone came along with a biscuit tin full of Maison Blanc’s best (and richest, slightly crisp outer coat with the inside verging on truffle) chocolate brownies. One chocolate brownie taken with one lemon polenta biscuit – a great combination.

This recipe is slightly adapted from the recipe for Polenta Crescents in 500 Cookies by Philippa Vanstone (pub. Apple Press, 2005)

115 g unsalted butter (cubed and softened)

100g golden icing sugar

2 egg yolks

grated zest 1 lemon (2-3 teasp) (or lime)

1 teasp vanilla extract

100 g SR flour

50 g ground almonds

50 g finely ground polenta

1 dessert spoon of lemon or lime curd (optional)

Lemon polenta crescents

Preheat oven 160 ºC/ 140 º C for a fav oven/325º F/ Gas Mark 3

Grease 2 largish baking sheets.

Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks, lemon (or lime) zest, lemon curd and vanilla essence.

In another bowl sift the flour and almonds and stir in the polenta. Add this to the butter mixture ad mix until you get a smooth dough.

Roll little balls of dough into small sausages (using lightly floured hands) and curve this into crescents as you put them on the baking sheet. Space them about 5cm/2″ apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 10-15 minutes until they start to become golden at the edges. Leave on baking trays to firm up for a few minutes and then transfer to wire rack to cool right down.

Store in an air tight container for 5-7 days.

I used self raising flour so mine puffed out to make podgy crescents. If you want yours to be a bit more refined and sylph like use plain flour and add just a very small pinch of baking powder. I only had a slightly wizened lime which is why I added some lemon curd – not really necessary but made sure the biscuit was moist and very citrusy.

Makes 24.

Lemon polenta crescent on an Anthropologie grasshopper plate

Goldwork GK monogram (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

I apologise for mentioning Christmas so early, but if you try to make presents yourself you have to be hard at it by mid November. Returning to the cathedral embroiderers at Christ Church I’ve been re-introduced to gold work and thought it might be enjoyable to embroider a couple of initials in couched gold thread to give as a Christmas present.

Framed GK monogram (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Surprisingly straightforward these two initials didn’t take long. The only problem is the usual one with gold thread – what to do with the long ends of metallic thread pushed through to the reverse. After cutting them I loosely  whipped them on to the back of the couching threads but it’s difficult to avoid a bit of a bump in places where there are several loose ends. Perhaps it would have been better to have drawn thicker letters so the metal thread could be turned on top rather than having to plunge beneath. But then the monogram would have had a very different look. Threads are generally so easy to bend to your will, it’s a bit of a shock to meet a thread that fights back.