Biscuit Making

Once a week Edna made a huge batch of biscuits and if I am sure it would be done on Tuesday mornings. Her usual batch was malt biscuits made in a large quantity and meant to last a week of paddock lunch boxes for my Grandfather and anyone else who happened to be around. The only bought biscuits I ever saw her buy were broken biscuits packed into a brown paper bag and brought home to the farm to make hedgehog. I was allowed to pick out the special bits such as orange creams as a treat! Bought biscuits were an absolute luxury for me then but now I rarely buy them, perhaps because the recipes for biscuits I make are so much more interesting than the ones that Edna made. I could not imagine her making (and nor would anyone else in the 50s) chocolate chip biscuits although years later in the 70s when she went to the USA to stay with my Auntie I note that she copies a recipe for choc chip cookies but by then choc chips had become a pantry staple!

For the last seven years I have not had spare time to make biscuits, but this year as I am winding down my travel business and trying to win my life back I have taken delight in making a batch or two of three! My reasons are similar I am sure to those that Nana had years ago. I can save a lot of money by making our own biscuits, they are quick to make, they keep (that is if you can stop from eating one or two or three a day!) and you know what goes into them!

This morning the biscuit jar was empty and this month our cash flow is tight and so instead of going down to the local supermarket I decided to use up ingredients I had on hand to make a batch of biscuits. A favourite recipe has always been choc chip biscuits with walnuts and I find that as long as the basic ingredients stay the same I can adapt this recipe to suit the nuts or sugars I have on hand. I have used up the walnuts in a delicious apple celery and walnut salad on the weekend (mmm .... always so good to eat with chicken) the pecan jar is empty but there was just over half a cup of peanuts. I remembered that there were two almost empty jars of peanut paste ( okay peanut butter to those who do not live in this part of the world) and I had enough choc chips (only because I had hidden them from the pantry thieves). I reduced the butter by the two tablespoons of peanut paste that I managed to scrape out of the jars, chopped up the peanuts, and used all light brown sugar for a caramelly taste. Wonderful aroma wafted through the house as they cooked. Now the biscuit jar is almost full again ..... some went to my husband with his lunch special delivery by me! Oh and of course I had to have a few with my coffee. Delicious! Edna would have approved, I can see her jotting down the recipe on a scrap of paper now!

Biscuit jar nearly full of choc chop peanut biscuits.