When the weather gives you rain, make biscuits
The weather has been appalling today: strong wind, heavy showers and black skies. Good day to do some baking then! A few days ago, I'd randomly thought about some biscuits I'd made a few times which were always seriously yummy. I've not made them for ages, partly because of the gluten-free thing but also because the recipe makes a lot. It's not easy to halve either because it uses one egg and I've yet to work out a good way to halve an egg! But now that I've found some decent gluten-free flour, I thought I'd give it a try. I didn't really have the right butter though. I always use Stork for baking and I just had the soft one in the tub which is better for cakes, rather than the firm block which is more for pastry. I debated whether to nip down to the corner shop and see if they had any of the other but it was chucking it down with rain so I thought I'd stick with the kind I had.
The recipe is straightforward enough: cream butter and sugar, beat in the egg, then add the flour and spices and knead to make a firm dough. I don't know if it was the butter or the flour that was the problem but it was more like cake mix than biscuit dough. I added a load more flour and finally got it to be more dough-like although it was still very soft. Thankfully it didn't require rolling out or cutting out because that really would have been a struggle. The biscuits tended to spread anyway so I thought the worst that could happen was that they spread even more.
Ready to go in the oven
The recipe said that it made about 30 biscuits, I got 35 out of it which needed three trays to fit them all on. I was a little worried I was going to end up with over 40 with the amount of flour I'd had to add so it wasn't too bad. They did spread but not really more than usual. They didn't colour very much but gluten-free baking never does for some reason, it ends up looking rather insipid. The tops are supposed to be all cracked but only the second tray really did that. The first cracked a little and the third didn't crack at all.
They taste as I remember and they still have the wonderfully bizarre texture where they're hard and crunchy on the outside but soft and chewy in the middle. Not a bad result at all! I've given a load to Mr Nextdoor who is always very appreciative of the results of my baking. I think we can manage to get rid of the rest ;)
The recipe is straightforward enough: cream butter and sugar, beat in the egg, then add the flour and spices and knead to make a firm dough. I don't know if it was the butter or the flour that was the problem but it was more like cake mix than biscuit dough. I added a load more flour and finally got it to be more dough-like although it was still very soft. Thankfully it didn't require rolling out or cutting out because that really would have been a struggle. The biscuits tended to spread anyway so I thought the worst that could happen was that they spread even more.
Ready to go in the oven
The recipe said that it made about 30 biscuits, I got 35 out of it which needed three trays to fit them all on. I was a little worried I was going to end up with over 40 with the amount of flour I'd had to add so it wasn't too bad. They did spread but not really more than usual. They didn't colour very much but gluten-free baking never does for some reason, it ends up looking rather insipid. The tops are supposed to be all cracked but only the second tray really did that. The first cracked a little and the third didn't crack at all.
They taste as I remember and they still have the wonderfully bizarre texture where they're hard and crunchy on the outside but soft and chewy in the middle. Not a bad result at all! I've given a load to Mr Nextdoor who is always very appreciative of the results of my baking. I think we can manage to get rid of the rest ;)