A Bit of Biscuit Baking

I love homemade biscuits, don’t you? The smell of them baking in the oven, the look of them cooling on the cooling rack and then finally filling up those jars to the brim with homemade goodness. Well, that’s exactly what I’ve been up to in my kitchen this week. I made two batches of biscuits. A batch of Custard Powder Short Bread Stars and a batch of Peanut Butter Biscuits – both favorites in my home.

Now as you can imagine, one portion of biscuit dough makes quite a few biscuits, about 50 at least. So having made two different types we have biscuits coming out of our ears. The freezer is a biscuit makers best friend in this case. I placed half of each batch of cooked biscuits into a plastic container, separating each layer with a sheet of grease-proof paper, and popped them into the freezer.

Once this batch is finished I can simply take out the frozen biscuits and allow to defrost at room temperature – I would definitely lay them out on a cooling rack to defrost to as to avoid sogginess! 

Today I want to share both of these lovely pantry-stockers with you. The Custard Powder Shortbread has the lightest of the textures and the Peanut Butter – well, they are just plain yummy!

Custard Powder Short Bread Stars

170 g Butter

60 g Icing Sugar

85 g Custard Powder

1 and quarter cups Flour (160 g)

2 Level tsp Baking Powder

1 ml salt

Cream butter, add some icing sugar and beat until well mixed and soft. Sift in flour, custard powder, salt and baking powder. Mix all together well, Form small pieces of dough into small balls and flatten with fork – or as I did, gently roll out the dough to about 1 cm thickness and cut out star shapes using a cookie cutter. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 10 – 15 minutes at 180 deg. C. until lightly browned.

Peanut Butter Biscuits

1 and a half cups Flour (192 g)

125 g margarine or butter

3 Tblsp Peanut Butter

1 cup sugar( 220g)

half tsp Bicarb

1 tsp Baking Powder

1 beaten egg

dash of Vanilla Essence

Cream peanut butter, marge and sugar. Add beaten egg, stirring well. Add baking powder and bicarb dissolved in a little milk. Add flour and vanilla essence and knead mixture well. Roll into balls (walnut size). Place on greased baking sheet about 2 cm apart as they spread. Press biscuits with a lightly floured fork. Bake at 150 deg.C for 15-20 minutes. Will harden on cooling.

Blessings to you all today…