Adventures in Thyme

Our adventures in food

Empire Biscuits

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Empire Biscuit by D Fenwick, http://dfenwickphotography.com

Empire Biscuit

 

As the weather changes in the Fall I start getting melancholy for my life back in England.  I miss the “old world”, the charm of cobbled streets, watching canal boats float lazily thru the locks and of course afternoon tea.  One of my fondest memories was nibbling Empire Biscuits along with a lovely cup’a tea.  Today’s recipe takes me back to that time so long ago when I could walk thru Shakespeare’s town, and stroll thru the hedge maze at Hampton Court.  Enjoy!

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F.  I recommend using a printed silicone baking mat with cookie circles on it.

Cream together:
1 cup softened Butter (two sticks of butter)
1/2 cup Sugar

then add:
1 tsp Vanilla
1 Egg

finally mix in:
1 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour
1/2 cup Self Rising Flour

Strawberry Jam
Powdered Sugar (make a glaze out of ~ 2 cups and a bit of water)
Maraschino Cherries cut into fourths

The batter will be slightly sticky.  If you feel you can flour a surface, roll out the dough and cut circles – go for it!  I tend to flour a surface and roll the batter into the size of a long zucchini.  I then pinch off ~ tablespoon roll it into a ball and then carefully flatten it onto a cookie circle on my silicone mat.  They come out fairly uniform and you can tell from the picture they don’t look too bad!

Bake about 9-10 mins or until the edges begin to brown.  Once cool put a little strawberry jam on the “wrong” side of the cookie and then place a second cookie onto it so you’ve got a strawberry cookie sandwich.  With the back of a small spoon place a circle of glaze on the top of your cookie sandwich and top with a piece of cherry.

They are so delicious.  I need an intervention… 

 

 

Christmas Oatmeal Cookies

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oatmeal cookies by D Fenwick, http://dfenwickphotography.com

oatmeal cookies

If you’re reading this post you’ve survived the holidays, congratulations!  We have emerged from our food comas too to share with you one of our Christmas family traditions – baking a “goodie”.  We bake lots of goodies going into the Christmas season, and this one is a favorite that combines healthy oats with dried fruits and nuts.  Oh there’s chocolate of course, what would it be without that?!

Our recipe started as Quaker Oats “Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies” recipe at http://www.quakeroats.com/cooking-and-recipe/vanishing-oatmeal-raisin-cookies.aspx ,  we tweaked it a bit to put a little tingle in your kingle.  Enjoy!

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) Butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed Dark Brown Sugar
1 cup Granulated Sugar
4 Eggs
2 teaspoons Real Vanilla Extract
3 cups All-purpose Flour
2 teaspoons Baking Soda
2 teaspoons Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Salt
6 cups Quick Quaker® Oats
2 cups Dried Cranberries
1 10 oz package Dark Chocolate Chips
1 12 oz package Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
2 cups chopped Pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Use your mixer to cream together the butter and sugars. Add the eggs (1 at a time) and then the vanilla. Beat until well combined.

In a separate bowl, mix well the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. (You can also sift this together if you like.)

Slowly, a little at a time, add the dry ingredients to your wet ingredients. (At this point, the batch was too big for our mixer, so we had to move to a large metal mixing bowl and finish mixing by hand).

Now add the oats, cranberries, chocolate chips and pecans. Mix until evenly combined. (This part took both of us, one to hold the bowl and one to mix.)

Drop by round teaspoonsful onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Use your fingers or a spoon to press them into flat disks. These will not flatten out on their own. Bake until golden, about 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on the cookie sheet for a minute or two. Move to a cooling rack and let cool.

We made just over 10 dozen small cookies with this recipe – enough to hand out for unexpected guests and of course a few to leave for Santa Claus.

 

I’m Dreaming Of A…

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Dream Bars

Dream Bars

 

Forget about a white Christmas – From our home to yours, a Merry Christmas!

Our gift to you is another look into the old family recipe box – Dream Bars! We have no idea how old this recipe is or what its origin was, but it’s older than either of us. It’s a nice bar cookie with a crust that is almost a brown sugar shortbread.  So yummy, it’s more than worth your time in the kitchen.  Roll up your sleeves, it’s time to start Dream-ing.

Dream Bars

1/2 Cup Butter cut into small pieces
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
1 Cup Flour

Mix until crumbly (A pastry blender works well or you can pulse the mixture in our food processor)

Pat into a greased and floured 9 x 13 inch baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes.

While the above bakes make the topping.

2 Eggs, beaten
1 Cup Brown Sugar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
2 Tablespoons Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 1/2 Cup Coconut Flakes
1 Cup chopped nuts (Pecans work well)

Mix these together in the order given. Gently spread onto the baked crust.

Bake another 20 minutes at 350 degrees F. Let cool before attempting to cut these out of the pan.

Stroopwafel – One cookie to rule them all!

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Stroopwafels

Stroopwafels

What’s not to love about a cinnamon-cookie sandwich with sweet creamy caramel inside?  These delicious treats are a bit time consuming, and yes, there’s that pesky Pizelle iron that you need – but it’s worth it.  Let me say that again – IT’S WORTH IT!  This is “crack” for cookie aficionados.

You see, you take these little delicacies and place them over your hot cup o’joe, or maybe your mug of Earl Grey tea, and remember that caramel I mentioned?  It warms up and gets even more delicious and this becomes your favorite Breakfast food ever!  And of course then there’s Second Breakfast, and who can forget about Elevensies?!  If your family has not absconded with them, you will find you’ve eaten the whole batch yourself and frankly can’t remember how you did it!  They were there, and then they weren’t, all that’s left are the crumbs upon on your shirt…

But what’s the recipe you ask?  Stroopwafel recipes are heavily guarded secrets, passed down generationally.  Do a Google search and find an ingredient list that looks appealing (I’d personally steer clear of the ones that include Yeast, but that’s me), and you’ll know when the recipe is successful – you’ll start hearing the raspy moans from friends and family “I want’s it…my precious…”