Keep The Biscuit Tin Well Filled

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28983, 26 August 1959, Page 3

Keep The Biscuit Tin Well Filled

By

“ELIZABETH"

Quite the nicest thing in the biscuit tin this week were these Lemon Spice Cookies which were also the quickest and easiest way of filling a large tin, too.

These crisp, golden, spicy cookies are iced with white lemon icing. Put it on in a quick dab while the cookies are still a little warm and it will run smoothly over with a minimum of time or trouble.

These are biscuits which require no rolling and cutting—only a casual flip down with a fork when they are on the tray, yet they come attractively shaped and tidy from the oven.

Lemon Spice Cookies

Ingredients: Boz butter Boz sugar 1 egg I2oz flour teaspoons cinnamon 1J teaspoons spice i teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon soda Grated rind of 1 lemon Icing: Jib icing sugar 1 teaspoon butter Lemon juice Drop or two of hot water

Method: Cream Boz butter with Boz sugar (do not melt) and beat in one egg. Sift in flour, soda, salt and spices and add the finely grated rind of one lemon. Work together to a paste and break out into small pieces. With lightlyfloured hands form the paste into small balls and place fairly spaced apart on a cold slide. With a fork dipped into cold water decorate with a criss-cross design. Bake at regulo 4 or 350 degrees until golden. Lift off onto a wire tray. Beat 1 teaspoon of butter into the icing sugar, a drop or two of hot water and sufficient lemon juice to beat to a creamy mixture. Spread a little on the centres of the still slightly-warm biscuits and leave spread out on the wire, tray until cold and set before storing. Makes a large batch. • Bananas.— To prevent bananas turning brown dip them in lemon, orange, grapefruit or pineapple mice. This will keep them creamy in colour for two hours. Do not store them in a refrigerator as ’heir flavour Will be affected and they will not ripen properly. ' • Cooking Vegetables.— Vegetables should be boiled in the minimum of water to preserve their goodness. Wherever possible cook them in their skins, with the lid firmly on the pot and serve them immediately. Overcooking ruins vegetables.

Peanut Salties

Whether you want them merely to butter for the morning tea tray or to provide a base for making quick and interesting little savoury snacks for the drinks tray or supper, a tin of some sort of plain or salty biscuits in the cupboard is a tremendous help in effortless catering. When the bases are crisp, nutty and delicious they are a real joy. These Peanut Salties are as quick and easy to mix as oatcakes and bake evenly into perfect shape. The peanuts must be finely minced; once through on an electric mincer or run through twice with a fine hole cutter on a hand one. Ingredients: 8 oz finely minced peanuts 4 oz flour Pinch of bicarbonate of soda 2 oz butter Half a cup of boiling water 1 good dessertspoon salt

Method: In a bowl place finely minced peanuts, flour, salt and a good pinch of soda and mix together. Place cut up butter in the centre and pour in boiling water. Mix well and leave a few minutes to cool. Break out pieces and on a well-floured board roll as thinly as possible and cut into small, neat squares. Lift onto a cold slide and bake in a moderate oven until golden brown. Lift off and cool on a wire tray, then store in an airtight tin. They will keep very well.

Coconut Raisin Ovals

Half the charm of home-made biscuits lies in variety, and the appearance as well as the flavour contributes to success. These golden brown Coconut Raisin Ovals look and taste different. They are wonderfully simple to make. In cooking they puff, then they flatten and turn golden brown and that is the moment to watch for. Quantities given make a good tin-full of delicious biscuits. Ingredients: 4oz butter 6oz sugar 1 egg 6oz flour 1 small teaspoon soda i teaspoon salt 4oz coconut 4oz chopped raisins Method: Cream the butter and the sugar together and beat in egg. Sift in flour, soda and salt. With a pair of scissors cut raisins into pieces and add, together with coconut and work all together to a stiff paste. With lightlyfloured hands, roll small pieces into neat, thin rolls with squaredoff ends, almost as long as cigarettes and no thicker through. Lay on a cold oven slide, a little apart. When the tray is full, dip a fork in cold water and press down each lightly with diagonal marking. Bake at 350 or regulo 1 4 until the biscuits have flattened and turned a good golden brown. Leave a second on the I slide, then lift off on to a wire I tray to crisp before storing.

Poaching Eggs.—To poach eggs without a poaching pan. dip each egg. in its shell, in boiling water while you count thirty. Then in a pan of fresh boiling water, add a dessertspoon of vinegar and stir the water fast until a whirlpool forms. Into this break the eggs, one at a time. Allow 1 to 1J minutes for cooking and remove the eggs from the pan carefully with a draining spoon.