I think this post may just about sneak into this month's making winter week - by the skin of it's teeth. Emma at Silverpebble is hosting it this time. I haven't checked out all the posts yet but know there will be some wonderful ones so do take a look if you have a chance.
I had been planning to post about baking this time as it seems to me to be one of the ultimate ways of making winter, and really any time of year, extra good fun. And, by coincidence (or perhaps thinking along the same wavelength), Emma has asked for recipes that she will try to compile together in Baking Winter resource.
At the beginning of last week I made one of my favourite, and very very simple, biscuit recipes. I have it written down on a scrap of paper headed 'K'aldy Grannie's chocolate biscuits' and I can clearly remember the first time she made them - I was about 12 I think. K'aldy Grannie lived in Kircaldy when I was little and I used to refer to talk about visiting Grannie in K'aldy and, since I am her eldest grandchild, the name has stuck ever since. My other grannie was Grandad's Grannie as she belonged with grandad (my other grandad sadly died long before I was born).
For K'aldy Grannie's chocolate biscuits you will need::
175g butter
100g caster sugar
200g plain flour
25g cocoa
1 pinch salt
about 75g chocolate to decorate
Roll the dough into two sausage shapes and cool in the fridge for at least an half an hour.
Cut into around 20 rounds (and try not to eat too much dough at the same time - very tricky, it is incredibly yummy.........or maybe it isn't and I'm just weird!) and lay out onto a large lined or greased baking tray.
For Banana Chocolate Chunk Cake* you will need::
2 large very ripe bananas**
1/2 tsp vanilla
175g butter
225g granulated sugar
275g self raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
3 eggs - beaten
100g chocolate - chopped
Peel and mash ( I use a potato masher, but a fork would work too) the bananas with the vanilla.
Gently heat the butter and sugar in a saucepan until melted. Remove from the heat and allow to cool a little. Sift in the flour and bicarb of soda. Beat in the eggs and mashed banana. Stir in the chocolate chunks.
Pour the mixture into two 8 inch lined sandwich tins and cook at 170 degrees for around 35 minutes. Cool on wire racks.
Sandwich together with cream and sliced banana - and eat, it doesn't keep all that well. It makes a yummy pudding.
* Sorry for the lack of photos, I did make it on Saturday as a pudding for lunch with friends but completely forgot to take any pictures.
** I freeze bananas (in a plastic bag or box, after removing the skins) when they get over-ripe and then just take out the appropriate number a couple of hours before baking.
On a completely different note I was delighted to find a copy of All That Katy Did in a local charity shop recently. I have been thinking that Islay would probably like the What Katy Did books in a little while so it was great to find them all in one. And I picked up a couple more too that I think the boys will like. Islay isn't really reading by herself yet (although she loves being read to and looking at books) but the boys are voracious readers and I'm always on the look-out for new books for them.
I hope January has been good to you all. See you in February!
10 comments:
Oh Julie you're making me hungry!! Love the Katy stories, hope Islay will too :-)
Those biscuits look yummy! I shall have to try baking some myself! I loved the Katy Did books too, also liked Greyfriars Bobby as well. Hope they all love the books! :)
I love old family recipes.
I have the Katy books that look a similar age to your charity shop find. My daughter never read them but I must have read them dozens of times.
Lovely chocolatey recipes - they look delicious! And good to see your little helper at work!
Pomona x
You're not weird - all right-minded people like cookie dough! (Sometimes more than the baked cookies it turns into.
They do look delicious. Now I need to go eat some chocolate.
The biscuits look yummy. Real comfort food. I must try the banana one. I have a collection of my Grandma's and G. Grandma's recipes, but the things they cooked the most give quantities as "a bit of" and "a handful of". Those are the ones I'd love to replicate!
Yum bananas and chocolate I must try your cake thanks for sharing it with us.
Katie looks so cute hope she is working hard on testing your bandanas!
Sarah
They both sound like delicious recipes - I'll show them to the Little Lockets who are the chief bakers round here! Have your boys discovered the Tollins books? My Fred loves them - they are about little people with wings "BUT THEY ARE NOT FAIRIES! Fairies are fragile things and Tollins are as fragile as a housebrick" ;o) Lucy x
P.S. I meant to say that your Grannie's names made me smile. Mr Locket's mum and dad are known as Granny and Grandpa Biscuit and mine are known as Granny and Grandpa Dog! It comes from Dot who when she was little and first talking used to get excited as we approached each grandparents' house because of the one thing she knew would be there....... biscuits at the Biscuits and a dog at the Dogs! The names have stuck - although for a similar reason my sister's children always refer to my parents as Granny and Grandpa Chickens - and I think they possibly prefer this nickname!! ;o)
oh those biscuits look good, I think they would be very popular here. E and I just read Mr Stink, at times I had tears of laughter rolling down my face (at the after school schedule....)
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