Today was our first baking day in about 3 years! Last week we took delivery of our new (2nd hand!) LPG range and yesterday Father Earthly found the time to plumb it all in properly (with the exception of the oven lights and ignition). We're SO chuffed... I never dreamt we'd find a range in our budget and certainly not so soon! It's got not one but two ovens (so Christmas dinner and the odd banquet should be no probs!), a grill (oooh proper toast again!), 5 burners, a griddle and an electric warming plate which we won't be using.
Harris obviously helped choose the most appropriate recipe and then Father Earthly had to work out how to make it with only half the ingredients in... so what should have been lebkuchen turned out to be honey spice cookies - but still nevertheless yummy! Here's the recipe (roughly!)Honey Spice Cookies
6-7tsp organic honey
50g (or so) raw granulated sugar (or any course brown sugar)
Large splash of veg oil (about 20ml)
250g (ish) self-raising flour
50g or so ground almonds
4 tsp ground mixed spice
Good shake of cinnamon - 1/2 - 1tsp)
1/8 nutmeg, grated
1/2" of root ginger, grated
Rind of 1 unwaxed organic lemon, grated
Melt together the honey, sugar and oil over a low heat until well mixed and allow to cool. Mix melted mixture with rest of ingredients into a very stiff dough. Leave for a couple of hours (preferably covered in cling film and chilled). On floured board, press dough into 1/2" sheets and use egg cup (or appropriate cutters!) to cut discs and/or roll small pieces into 'sausages' and form into crescent moon shapes. Place on baking parchment on a baking tray at gas mark 4 for 15-20 minutes or until just browning at edges and becoming firm. Optional: dunk in good quality dark chocolate (e.g. Maya Gold) once cool. Sorry there's no pics of the finished product - they just vanished!
Just a few pointers...
ReplyDelete1. We were being visited by a vegan friend (who eats honey), otherwise I'd have used butter instead of the veg oil. If he'd been a full vegan (and more importantly I'd had them in), I would have used equal amounts of black treacle and agave syrup or golden syrup.
2. The "ish"es and "or so"s in the ingredients are because generally I don't measure for most recipes. If a recipe calls for 225g of flour, I call that 250g, which is about 1/4 of a bag. Similarly, 50g of ground almonds was "about" 1/4 of the 200g bag I had.
3. Finally, the recipe was adapted from the rather magnificent book Gifts from the Kitchen (http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=papercatcouk-21&o=2&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=1856269388)
Father Earthly