Move Over McVities! (Cookie Recipes)

Member Name: jasminesarah

Product:	Cookie Recipes
Date:	11/11/08 (214 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Really more-ish yummy, inexpensive and easy to make

Disadvantages: Very easy to eat hundreds at a time...

These biscuits are very similar to Hob Nobs, which might not sound very exotic (they aren't) but as many of you will already know, Hob Nobs can be very addictive! These are easy to make and cheaper than buying packets of Hob Nobs, plus you get to impress your family and friends with that gorgeous home made biscuits smell wafting out of the kitchen!

First mix the following ingredients:

225 g self raising flour
225 g oats
225 g sugar
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Brown sugar, demerara for preference, is best - but any will work. If you use plain flour it won't be the end of the world either, as these don't really rise - just pop in a tsp of baking power as well. You can use ordinary porridge oats, which really are very inexpensive.

Next, melt the following ingredients in a bowl, using the micowave or if you're feeling like Nigella you can use a Bain Marie!

225 g margarine or butter
1 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp hot water

Butter makes for a richer biscuit, but you can use any margarine unless it is a super low fat one (it will be marked on the packet if it is not suitable for baking).

Mix the melted ingredients into the dry, to make a rather 'textured' dough. You can either break off little balls of dough and flatten them, or for more even and professional results roll the dough out on a floured surface and use a cutter to make biscuit shapes.

Place on baking trays with gaps between them, ideally on a sheet of grease proof paper or otherwise grease the tray. Then bake in a pre-heated oven (180 C) for 10 minutes, until they are starting to go golden brown.

Once you've made these, you might want to ring the changes with other ingredients - I like to add some cinnamon and chopped dried cranberries, or sultanas and chopped nuts work well too.

This recipe makes a large batch, of about 48 biscuits if you roll the dough fairly thin. It is surprisingly easy for all of these to disappear before they've even properly cooled down, but if you want to be more restrained you could half the quantities.

Better still, make the full amount but freeze half - either as a lump of dough, or cut out the biscuits and freeze them on a tray (once they're frozen you can put them in a freezer box or bag). Then, they'll bake from frozen very easily. Unexpected guests? You can have freshly made biscuits ready almost before the kettle's boiled! It is the kind of smug domestic goddess thing that makes me happy (and distracts people from my un-hoovered carpets, etc, I hope.)

Summary: Biscuit baking is easy and satisfying!