Baking biscuits through the ages

When I started teaching Home Economics in 1980, students would grease oven trays for biscuit making using pastry brushes from a communal saucepan of melted butter.

I remember stressing to avoid greasing into the corners of the trays because the butter here would burn and make the tray corners difficult to clean.

How times have changed! Now we have spray oils, baking paper, silicone mats and a whole range of other products to make baking and food preparation more simple.

Last Christmas I resurrected my mother’s old biscuit forcer and, to the delight of my family made some very fancy biscuits.

I wonder how many biscuits forcers are tucked away in drawers in the Meander Valley?

Even without a biscuit forcer, this month’s recipe is equally impressive.

---

Fudgey Choc Cherry Biscuits

Biscuit Ingredients

• 1 and ½ C or 200g milk chocolate melts

• 60g butter

• ¼ C or 60 ml of vegetable oil

• 1/3 C castor sugar

• 2 eggs – lightly beaten

• 1 C plain flour

• 1 C self -raising flour

• 3 Cherry Ripe bars – chopped

Topping Ingredients (Optional)

• About 110 g milk chocolate melts – melted, extra

• 1 ts vegetable oil

• Cherry ripe – chopped

• Glace Cherries – chopped

• Shredded coconut

Method

1. Combine melts, butter, oil and sugar in a saucepan and stir over low heat until chocolate and stir in the eggs, sifted flours and chopped cherry ripe bars, butter are melted and ingredients combined.

2. Cool to room temperature.

3. Roll tablespoons of mixture into balls and place 3 cm apart on a baking paper lined oven tray.

4. Press them down lightly with your fingers after putting them on the tray.

5. Bake at 180C for about 20 minutes or until lightly browned.

6. Cool on tray until firm then lift onto a cake cooler.

7. Spread tops with combined extra melted chocolate and oil and decorate with extra cherry ripe, glace cherries and shredded coconut.