Addison Embroidery
at the
Vicarage

Chocolate dipped shortcake

One of the first things I remember making in school cookery lessons were Viennese shortcake fingers, so with boundless confidence I set about repeating my  earlier success. I dutifully followed a recipe in my standby book (1001 Cupcakes, Cookies & other tempting treats, ed Susannah Tee, pub. Paragon books, 2009) and was slightly alarmed at how sloppy the mixture seemed. So, I added more flour. When I then came to pour the mixture into a forcing bag to pipe on to the baking tray, I realised why the mixture needed to be looser as my dough stuck in the forcing bag and with no amount of effort could I get it to come out of the nozzle and form a nice ridged finger on the plate. Failure. So, I had to dig the mixture out of the piping bag, roll little nugget-sized pieces into little balls, press a fork over the top (to try to emulate the interest of the planned-for finger), put them in the oven and keep my fingers crossed. Hmm. They were rather short, not very sweet and just about rescued by being dipped in melted chocolate. Below is what they should have looked like. Miraculously all my biscuits were eaten but that may be because a)all the church goers were too polite &/or b)because we had the Annual Parochial Church Meeting shortly afterwards. 

Chocolate-dipped Viennese fingers (from ‘1001 Cupcakes, Cookies & other tempting treats’ ed. Susannah Tee; pub. paragon Books, 2009)

Below is the embroidered tablecloth just visible under my plate of shortbread. My mother embroidered it when she was young and I have always loved it. Sadly, it never gets much of an outing as it’s a difficult size. It is such a simple design with knobbly french knots as stamens and the little patches of cut work in between the flowers.

Embroidered linen tablecloth

Midnight biscuits

The college library where I work has undergone many changes in the last couple of years, but I was still taken by surprise at the Acting Librarian’s idea that we should have a ‘squash and biscuits’ session once a week for the students studying in the library during Trinity term. We are fortunate to have a rather splendid room within the library complex, so students could have a brief break, chat, drink and nibble without having to cross the quad to the JCR (Junior Common Room) and risk being distracted by more lengthy conversation. My contribution was to bake the batch of the biscuits seen above.

Ingredients

125 g/ 4 and a half oz butter

175 g /6 oz caster sugar

1 lightly beaten egg

half a teasp vanilla extract

70 g/ 2  and a half oz self raising flour

70 g / 2 and a half oz ground almonds

35 g/ 1 and a quarter oz cocoa powder

Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees C for a fan oven/180 degrees C/350 degrees F/Gas Mark 4

Grease and line 3 large baking sheets with baking paper .

Put butter and sugar in a large bowl ad beat until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix until smooth. Sift flour and cocoa powder and add to mixture and then incorporate the ground almonds.

with dampened hands take walnut-sized piece of dough and roll into little balls. Place  well apart on the baking sheets and gently flatten them slightly.

Bake for 10- 15 minutes or until set. Allow to cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

These biscuits were soft and chewy and very good with morning coffee, as sampled by the library staff.