GOOD GOD IT'S JUNE. It's been over two & a half months since I last posted, a new record even by my feckless standards. Unsurprisingly, it's time that's been spent getting to grips with Dadness, and there's so much to be said about the last 12 weeks the very thought of sitting down & writing about it is daunting - especially as free time can still be hard to come by. So! In an effort to start dipping my toes back into the bloggy waters, and while Bagl has a nap, here's a post about some biscuits.
Rather then being broken down into the usual way for a baking book (bread, pies, cakes, etc) it's divided up by country. Much like the TV show, it's a pleasant surprise how good it is, and the nation-specific aspect means you're not getting the usual recipes to be found in general baking books. For a taster, you can see 28 of the recipes from the book on the BBC Food site, including the recipe for cardamom and lemon stamped cookies from Norway (home of When The Robbers Came To Cardamom Town).
With free time at the weekends starting to appear after a couple of months of Total Baby, I thought I'd give these biscuits a go yesterday, and they came out pretty well. The ingredients list is simple enough (though ground cardamom may take a bit of searching at your local shop). The rich creaminess of the butter and sugar are balanced nicely by the lemon zest and spicy-sweet cardamom. Not only that, they're a great excuse to put a biscuit press into operation - we've were given this one as a gift some time back, but this is the first time I've put it to use, and it looks grand. Naturally I'm now daydreaming about getting my own bespoke biscuit press (it'd be a necessity for Nagl's Bagels Ltd) or perhaps getting the Boy one when he's older if he joins me for Sunday baking. And when he'll get to eat the results, how could he resist?
